Method and apparatus for composition and display of three-dimensional image from two-dimensional ultrasound scan data

A method, executed by a machine, of creating a memory containing a data structure encoding a series of two-dimensional representations of a material, said method comprising:

• (a) receiving a plurality of data sets, referred to as data slices, each said data slice representing a respective slice of said material;
• (b) defining (1) one or more regions within one of said data slices, referred to as one or more regions within data slice 1, and (2) one or more regions within another of said data slices, referred to as one or more regions within data slice 2;
• (c) measuring respective amounts of correlation between said one or more regions within data slice 1 and said one or more regions within data slice 2;
• (d) utilizing said respective amounts of correlation to compute a relative positional difference vector representative of a relative positional difference between data slice 1 and data slice 2;
• and
• (e) writing to said memory (1) a representation of at least a portion of said data slice 1, (2) a representation of at least a portion of said data slice 2, and (3) said relative positional difference vector.

A method, executed by a machine, of displaying a 3D image of a human tissue volume, said method comprising:

• (a) receiving a plurality of data sets, referred to as data slices, each said data slice representing a respective 2D slice of said tissue volume;
• (b) defining (1) one or more regions within one of said data slices, referred to as one or more regions within data slice 1, and (2) one or more regions within another of said data slices, referred to as one or more regions within data slice 2;
• (c) performing a process of speckle decorrelation measurement to determine respective amounts of correlation between said one or more regions in data slice 1 and said one or more regions in data slice 2;
• (d) utilizing said respective amounts of correlation to compute a relative positional difference vector representative of a relative positional difference between data slice 1 and data slice 2.