Accumulation imaging
AssigneeGeneral Electric Company
InventorsAnne Lindsay Hall, Michael Joseph Washburn, Koji Miyama, Kirstin Nora LaConte
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A system for displaying accumulated ultrasound images of tissue structures. A set of N image frames is used to produce a peak image display. Multiple peak image displays are produced by discarding the oldest image frame in the set of N image frames and replacing the discarded image frame with another more recent image frame. The more recent image frame is added to the set of image frames to produce a new set of N image frames. The new set of N image frames is used to produce another peak display image. If there is an undesirable amount of distortion or blur in the peak display images due to tissue motion, then the number of image frames in the set of N image frames can be reduced.
Claims18
A method for producing a combined peak display image with reduced distortion due to motion of anatomical structures comprising:
- determining a number of ultrasound image frames to be used in constructing said combined peak display image;
- collecting ultrasound image frames, until said number of image frames has been collected, each of said image frames having a matrix of pixels;
- selecting a peak intensity value for each corresponding pixel from amongst said image frames;
- constructing said combined peak display image with said peak intensity value for each corresponding pixel from amongst said image frames;
- and
- displaying said combined peak display image on a monitor.
A method for producing a combined peak display image wit reduced distortion due to motion of anatomical structures comprising:
- gathering a set of ultrasound image frames;
- storing said set of ultrasound image frames in a memory;
- downloading a plurality of image frames from said memory, wherein said plurality of image frames is less than all of the image frames in said set of ultrasound image frames;
- constructing said combined peak display image by comparing and selecting a peak intensity value for each corresponding pixel from amongst said plurality of image frames for use in constructing said combined peak display image;
- displaying said combined peak display image on a display device.
A system for producing a combined peak display image with reduced distortion due to motion of anatomical structures including:
- a transducer emitting ultrasound waves and receiving ultrasonic echoes, wherein said ultrasonic echoes are converted into data;
- an image frame processing unit receiving said data from said transducer and converting said data into image frames;
- a combined peak display image processing unit receiving said image frames and constructing said combined peak display images, wherein said combined peak display image processing unit accumulates said image frames into a set of image frames spanning an accumulation interval, compares corresponding pixels from said image frames in said set of image frames, selects a pixel with a peak intensity value for each said corresponding pixel from amongst said set of image frames, and constructs said combined peak display image using said pixel with said peak intensity value from amongst set of image frames;
- and
- a display for receiving said combined peak display images and displaying said combined peak display images.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.