Volume rendered three dimensional ultrasonic images with polar coordinates
AssigneeKoninklijke Philips Electronics N.V.
InventorsAlasdair Dow, Paul R. Detmer, Jing-Ming Jong
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Abstract
Three dimensional ultrasonic images are formed by volume rendering using a 3D ultrasonic image data set. The data set may be acquired by rocking, sweeping, fanning or rotating a 2D image plane through the volume being scanned, or by steering beams in different angular directions from a two dimensional array of transducer elements. The polar data is volume rendered to form a 3D image by means of projected raylines which are warped to account for the angular geometry of the acquisition.
Claims19
An ultrasound system which produces diagnostic images of volumetric regions of the body comprising:
- a probe which acquires echo signals along scanlines which are angularly arrayed with respect to each other from a volumetric region;
- a data storage device responsive to the echo signals which stores 3D data acquired from the volumetric region;
- and
- a volume renderer responsive to the 3D data which renders a 3D image using projections through the 3D data which are warped to account for an angular acquisition geometry.
A method for producing three dimensional ultrasonic images comprising:
- acquiring echo data from a volumetric region along a plurality of angularly arranged scanlines;
- producing a 3D data set from the echo data;
- and
- rendering a 3D image from the 3D data set by means of projected raylines which are warped to account for the angular variation of the scanlines.
An ultrasound system which produces diagnostic images of volumetric regions of the body comprising:
- a probe which is moved to acquire a sequence of angularly displaced sector images from a volumetric region;
- a scan converter which converts the data of each sector image to Cartesian coordinates;
- a data storage device responsive to the converted sector images which stores 3D data acquired from the volumetric region;
- and
- a volume renderer responsive to the 3D data which renders a 3D image using projections through the 3D data which are warped to account for the angular displacement of the sector images.
An ultrasound system which produces diagnostic images of volumetric regions of the body comprising:
- a probe which is moved to acquire a sequence of angularly displaced linear array images from a volumetric region;
- a scan converter which converts the data of each linear array image to Cartesian coordinate data;
- a data storage device responsive to the converted linear array images which stores 3D data acquired from the volumetric region;
- and
- a volume renderer responsive to the 3D data which renders a 3D image using projections through the 3D data which are warped to account for the angular displacement of the linear array images.
An ultrasound system which produces diagnostic images of volumetric regions of the body comprising:
- a multi dimensional array of transducer elements which electronically steers scanlines in different angular directions through a volumetric region being imaged;
- a data storage device responsive to the scanline data images which stores 3D data acquired from the volumetric region;
- and
- a volume renderer responsive to the 3D data which renders a 3D image using projections through the 3D data which are warped to account for the angular displacement of the scanlines.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.