Method for deciding opening of ultrasonographic device

A method for determining an aperture of an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus that includes:

• a probe including a plurality of transducer arrays for transmitting and receiving an ultrasonic beam to/from a subject;
• a transmission pulse generation unit for generating a plurality of transmission pulses for driving the transducer arrays;
• a beam former for subjecting signals received by the transducer arrays to a delay and sum operation;
• and a cross point switch for allocating the signals received by the transducer arrays to any of a plurality of input terminals of the beam former, wherein a manner of adding and thinning the received signals in the cross point switch is set so that more received signals from the transducers are input to one input terminal of the beam former on a center side rather than an end side of an aperture, the method comprising:
• a beam formation simulation step of performing a simulation of an ultrasonic beam pattern to be formed, based on a parameter concerning a signal processing condition of the probe including the manner of addition and thinning;
• and
• an addition and thinning pattern determination step of determining whether or not the beam pattern obtained in the beam formation simulation step satisfies a predetermined criterion.