Ultrasound color flow imaging
AssigneeB-K Medical Aps
InventorBo Martins
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method includes receiving ultrasound echo signals produced in response to a pulsed ultrasound field interacting with anatomical tissue and flow of structure therein. The method further includes generating electrical signals indicative thereof. The method further includes beamforming the electrical signals producing beamformed data. The method further includes constructing a real-time image of the anatomical tissue with the beamformed data. The method further includes constructing a de-aliased color images of the flow with the beamformed data. The method further includes visually presenting the real-time image of the anatomical tissue with the de-aliased color images of the flow superimposed thereover.
Claims19
A method, comprising:
- constructing a real-time image of the anatomical tissue with a beamformed data;
- constructing a de-aliased color image of the flow with the beamformed data by:
- creating a time series of color images;
- determining a de-aliasing image between a de-aliased image that is based on a previous non-de-aliased image and a de-aliased image that is based on a previous de-aliased image based on a number of discontinuities in the de-aliased image that is based on the previous non-de-aliased image and the de-aliased image that is based on the previous de-aliased image;
- and
- de-aliasing a current color image of the time series of color images based on the determined de-aliasing image to construct the de-aliased color image;
- and
- visually presenting the real-time image of the anatomical tissue with the de-aliased color image of the flow superimposed thereover.
An ultrasound system, comprising:
- a transducer array configured to transmit a pulsed field beam into a scan field of view, receive echo signals produced in response to the pulsed field interacting with anatomical tissue and flow of structure therein, and generate electrical signals indicative thereof;
- a beamformer configured to process the electrical signals and produce beamformed data;
- an image processor configured to process the beamformed data and generate a real-time image of the anatomical tissue;
- a color flow mapping processor configured to process the beamformed data and generate a de-aliased color images of the flow by:
- creating a time series of color images;
- determining a de-aliasing image between a de-aliased image that is based on a previous non-de-aliased image and a de-aliased image that is based on a previous de-aliased image based on a number of discontinuities in the de-aliased image that is based on the previous non-de-aliased image and the de-aliased image that is based on the previous de-aliased image;
- and
- de-aliasing a current color image of the time series of color images based on the determined de-aliasing image to construct the de-aliased color image;
- and
- a rendering engine configured to visually display the real-time image of the anatomical tissue with the de-aliased color images of the flow superimposed thereover.
An apparatus, comprising:
- a beamformer configured to beamform signals indicative of received echo signals produced in response to a pulsed field interacting with anatomical tissue and flowing structure therein;
- an image processor configured to process the beamformed signals and generate an image of the anatomical tissue;
- a color flow mapping processor configured to process the beamformed signals and generate a de-aliased color images of the flowing structure by:
- determining a de-aliasing image based on a number of discontinuities in a de-aliased image that is based on a previous non-de-aliased image and a de-aliased image that is based on a previous de-aliased image;
- and
- de-aliasing a current color image of a time series of color images based on the determined de-aliasing image to construct the de-aliased color image;
- and
- a display configured to visually display the image of the anatomical tissue with the de-aliased color images of the flowing structure overlaid thereover.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.