Synthetically focused ultrasonic diagnostic imaging system for tissue and flow imaging
First Claim
1. A synthetic focus ultrasound system comprising:
- an array of transducer elements;
a transmitter coupled to the transducer which acts to produce, in a first mode, transmit events by the transmission from an individual element or group of elements over the full image field, and in a second mode, to produce focused transmit beams from a plurality of transducer elements;
a receiver coupled to the transducer which receives echo signals from elements of the array in response to a transmit event or a focused transmit beam;
a processor coupled to the receiver which selectively performs synthetic focusing of signals received in response to transmit events or focused receive beams in response to focused transmit beams; and
a display which displays images produced from synthetically focused and focused beam transmit signals.
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Abstract
A synthetic focus ultrasound system is described which is operated in a hybrid fashion. System operation alternates between synthetic focus acquisition and conventional focused beam acquisition. This makes possible, for example, the acquisition and display of harmonic images. Speckle artifacts in the synthetic focused ultrasound images may be reduced by combining signals from different sub-apertures which view the image field from different look directions. In a described embodiment, sets of motion maps are be produced for different sub-apertures of the array transducer, then compounded to reduce speckle. One or more identified regions of interest within a synthetic focused ultrasound image may be processed differently from other regions of the image to highlight or better define particular motional characteristics within the regions of interest, such as turbulent flow or different velocities of flow or motion.
62 Citations
13 Claims
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1. A synthetic focus ultrasound system comprising:
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an array of transducer elements;
a transmitter coupled to the transducer which acts to produce, in a first mode, transmit events by the transmission from an individual element or group of elements over the full image field, and in a second mode, to produce focused transmit beams from a plurality of transducer elements;
a receiver coupled to the transducer which receives echo signals from elements of the array in response to a transmit event or a focused transmit beam;
a processor coupled to the receiver which selectively performs synthetic focusing of signals received in response to transmit events or focused receive beams in response to focused transmit beams; and
a display which displays images produced from synthetically focused and focused beam transmit signals. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6)
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7. A synthetic focus ultrasound system comprising:
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an array of transducer elements comprising a plurality of sub-apertures;
a transmitter coupled to the transducer which acts to produce transmit events by the transmission from an individual element or group of elements over the full image field;
a receiver coupled to the transducer which receives echo signals from elements of the array in response to a transmit event or a focused transmit beam;
a processor coupled to the receiver which acts to process different image data sets from different sub-apertures of the transducer array a combiner which acts to combine image data from the different sub-apertures; and
a display which displays images produced from the combined image data, wherein image speckle is reduced by spatial compounding. - View Dependent Claims (8)
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9. A synthetic focus ultrasound system for imaging an image field comprising:
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an array of transducer elements;
a transmitter coupled to the transducer which acts to produce transmit events by the transmission from an individual element or group of elements over the full image field;
a receiver coupled to the transducer which receives echo signals from elements of the array in response to a transmit event;
a processor coupled to the receiver which performs synthetic focusing of a first type in a designated portion of the image field, and synthetic focusing of a second type in a surrounding portion of the image field; and
a display which displays an image including the designated portion of the image field. - View Dependent Claims (10, 11, 12, 13)
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Specification