ULTRASOUND IMAGING APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR CONTROLLING THE SAME

• US 20150293215A1
• Filed: 02/26/2015
• Published: 10/15/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 04/15/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Inventors: KIM, Kyuhong, KIM, Baehyung, PARK, Suhyun, KHO, Youngihn, SONG, Jongkeun
• Granted Patent: US 10,591,597 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 8/4405 Device being mounted on a trolley
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 8/466 adapted to display 3D data 3D imaging and stereoscopic displays in devices for short-range imaging with acoustic waves G01S15/8993 and G01S7/52068, respectively; 3D image rendering G06T15/00; manipulating 3D models for computer graphics G06T19/00
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 8/483 involving the acquisition of a 3D volume of data
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 15/8993 Three dimensional imaging systems
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 7/52047 for elimination of side lobes or of grating lobes; for increasing resolving power

Abstract

An ultrasound imaging apparatus includes an ultrasonic probe configured to transmit an ultrasound to an object, receive an echo signal reflected from the object, and output the echo signal; a quality determiner configured to receive the echo signals and determine quality of voxels of a three-dimensional (3D) volume of the object to be rendered based on observation information of the 3D volume; and a beamformer configured to perform beamforming on the echo signal based on the quality of the voxels to generate an output signal.

Claims

1. An ultrasound imaging apparatus comprising:

an ultrasonic probe configured to transmit an ultrasound to an object, receive an echo signal reflected from the object, and output the echo signal;

a quality determiner configured to receive the echo signal and determine quality of voxels of a three-dimensional (3D) volume of the object to be rendered based on observation information of the 3D volume; and

a beamformer configured to perform beamforming on the echo signal based on the quality of the voxels to generate an output signal.

2. The ultrasound imaging apparatus of claim 1, wherein the quality determiner comprises an observation information detector configured to extract at least one of an observation center and an observation direction of the 3D volume.

3. The ultrasound imaging apparatus of claim 2, wherein the quality determiner comprises a quality calculator configured to calculate a distance between each of the voxels and the observation center based on the observation information, and calculate the quality of each voxel based on the distance.

4. The ultrasound imaging apparatus of claim 1, wherein the quality determiner comprises:

a quality map storage configured to store a quality map that has information about quality of the voxels of the 3D volume corresponding to the observation information; and

a quality retriever configured to retrieve a quality map that corresponds to the observation information from the quality map storage to determine the quality of the voxels.

5. The ultrasound imaging apparatus of claim 1, wherein the beamformer is configured to perform beamforming with a higher quality on the voxels having higher quality.

6. The ultrasound imaging apparatus of claim 1, wherein the beamformer is configured to perform beamforming such that a respective voxel having a higher quality has a higher resolution.

7. The ultrasound imaging apparatus of claim 1, wherein the beamformer comprises:

a transformer configured to generate a transformed signal from the echo signal by using a transformation matrix corresponding to a quality of a respective voxel;

a weight calculator configured to calculate a signal weight to be applied to the transformed signal; and

a combiner configured to generate the output signal by using the transformed signal and the calculated signal weight.

8. The ultrasound imaging apparatus of claim 7, wherein the transformer is configured to reduce a dimension of the echo signal by using the transformation matrix according to the quality of the respective voxel.

9. The ultrasound imaging apparatus of claim 7, wherein the beamformer comprises a storage configured to store basis vectors of the transformation matrix, and

wherein a number of the basis vectors is determined based on the quality of the respective voxel.

10. The ultrasound imaging apparatus of claim 7, wherein the transformation matrix comprises a combination of basis vectors obtained through a principal component analysis on the quality of the respective voxel.

11. The ultrasound imaging apparatus of claim 1, further comprising:

an image processor configured to generate a 3D volume based on one or more output signals, output by the beamformer, and render the 3D volume into a two-dimensional (2D) plane.

12. A method for controlling an ultrasound imaging apparatus, the method comprising:

retrieving observation information of a three-dimensional (3D) volume of an object to be rendered;

determining quality of voxels of the 3D volume based on the observation information; and

performing beamforming on the voxels based on the determined quality.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the observation information includes information about at least one of an observation center and an observation direction of the 3D volume.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the determining the quality of the voxels comprises determining the quality of each of the voxels based on a distance between the observation center and each voxel of the 3D volume.

15. The method of claim 12, wherein the determining the quality of the voxels comprises:

retrieving a quality map having information about the quality of the voxels of the 3D volume corresponding to the observation information; and

determining the quality of the voxels according to the retrieved quality map.

16. The method of claim 12, wherein the performing beamforming comprises performing beamforming such that the voxels having higher quality have higher resolution.

17. The method of claim 12, wherein the performing beamforming comprises:

transforming an echo signal to a transformed signal by using a transformation matrix corresponding to the determined quality of a respective voxel;

calculating a signal weight to be applied to the transformed signal; and

generating an output signal using the transformed signal and the signal weight.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the transformation vector comprises one or more basis vectors generated through a principal component analysis, and

wherein a number of the basis vectors is determined based on the determined quality of the respective voxel.

19. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

generating a 3D volume based on one or more output signals resulting from beamforming; and

rendering the 3D volume image into a two-dimensional (2D) plane.