Ultrasound diagnostic apparatus
AssigneesKabushiki Kaisha Toshiba, Fuji Photo Optical Co., Ltd.
InventorsYasutsugu Seo, Yasuo Miyajima, Masaaki Ishiguro
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An ultrasound diagnostic apparatus includes first and second probes. The inside of an object to be examined is scanned with a first ultrasound beam through the first probe to acquire first ultrasound image data associated with the object. The inside of the object is scanned with a second ultrasound beam through the second probe to acquire second ultrasound image data associated with the object. The second ultrasound image data is synthesized with the first ultrasound image data on the basis of the position of the first probe relative to the second probe, which is detected by a position detector.
Claims23
An ultrasound diagnostic apparatus comprising:
- a first probe;
- a second probe;
- a first transmitter/receiver configured to scan the inside of an object to be examined with a first ultrasound beam through said first probe to acquire first ultrasound image data associated with the object;
- a second transmitter/receiver configured to scan the inside of the object with a second ultrasound beam through said second probe to acquire second ultrasound image data associated with the object;
- a position detector configured to detect a position of said first probe relative to said second probe;
- a first converter configured to receive and store the first ultrasound image data and positional information related to the first ultrasound image data;
- a second converter configured to receive and store the second ultrasound image data and positional information related to the second ultrasound image data;
- an image processor configured to synthesize the second ultrasound image data from the second converter with the first ultrasound image data from the first converter on the basis of the detected position to generate synthetic image data;
- and
- a display configured to display an image on the basis of the synthetic image data.
An ultrasound diagnostic apparatus comprising:
- a internal probe which is inserted into the body of an object to be examined;
- an external probe which is brought into contact with a body surface of the object;
- a unit configured to acquire radial cross section image data by radial scanning around said internal probe with the first ultrasound through said internal probe;
- a unit configured to acquire volume data by scanning a 3-D region inside the object with the second ultrasound beam through said external probe;
- a first converter configured to receive and store the radial cross section image data and positional information related to the radial cross section data;
- a second converter configured to receive and store the volume data and positional information related to the volume data;
- an image processor configured to generate cross section image data of a cross section corresponding to the position of said internal probe from the volume data and performing synthesis of the cross section image data from the second converter with the radial cross section image data from the first converter;
- and
- a display configured to display an image on the basis of the image data obtained by the synthesis.
An image generating method for an ultrasound diagnosis comprising:
- generating first ultrasound image data on the basis of outputs of an internal probe;
- generating second ultrasound image data on the basis of outputs of an external probe;
- transmitting said first ultrasound image data and positional information related to said first ultrasound image data to a first converter;
- transmitting said second ultrasound image data and positional information related to said second ultrasound image data to a second converter;
- detecting a position of said internal probe relative to said external probe;
- and
- synthesizing the second ultrasound image data from the second converter with the first ultrasound image data from the first converter on the basis of the detected position to generate a display image data.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.