Ultrasound Machine Providing Composite Image Data
AssigneeWisconsin Alumni Research Foundation
InventorsRay Vanderby, Mon-Ju Wu, Joseph Karls, Sarah Kuehl, William A. Sethares
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Abstract
An ultrasound imaging system combines successive images of a time series to produce high-resolution ultrasound. A piecewise registration process and deemphasizing of high-frequency spatial components may be used to aid in the combination process. A high-definition image may be obtained with or separately from this process by combining different images obtained with different ultrasound frequencies. The images are weighted to accentuate the contribution of high-frequency ultrasound data at the leading edge of imaged structure.
Claims18
An ultrasonic imaging apparatus comprising:
- an ultrasound transducer for transmitting ultrasound and detecting ultrasonic echoes from the transmitted ultrasound;
- ultrasound processing circuitry including an electronic computer executing a stored program to
- (a) generate a series of time displaced images depicting ultrasound echo information over at least two dimensions of an imaged object;
- and
- (b) combine multiple time displaced images to produce a high-resolution image with the steps of:
- (i) subdividing each of the multiple time displaced images into multiple regions having at least two dimensions to provide corresponding regions in each of the multiple time displaced images;
- (ii) separately registering corresponding regions of the multiple time displaced images in rotation and translation;
- and
- (iii) combining the corresponding regions as registered to produce the high-resolution image.
An ultrasonic imaging apparatus comprising:
- an ultrasound transducer for transmitting ultrasound and detecting ultrasonic echoes from the transmitted ultrasound at multiple different ultrasonic frequencies;
- ultrasound processing circuitry including an electronic computer executing a store(program to:
- (a) generate at least two images depicting ultrasound echo information over at least two dimensions of an imaged object at different ultrasound frequencies;
- and
- (b) combine the images at the different ultrasound frequencies to produce a high-definition image with the steps of:
- (i) weighting the images to emphasize data from at least one image at a higher ultrasound frequency with respect to data from at least one image at a lower ultrasound frequency for portions of the high-resolution image closer to the ultrasound transducer and to deemphasize data from the at least one image at higher ultrasound frequencies with respect to data from at least one image at lower ultrasound frequencies for portions of the high-definition image further from the ultrasound transducer;
- and
- combining the multiple registered regions to produce the high-definition image.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.