Koninklijke Philips Corporation N.v.

Alasdair Dow

James Robertson Jago

Lisa Kay Pumphrey

Paul Ross Detmer

Antoine Collet Billon

Cristian Lorenz

David N Roundhill

Antoine Collet-Billon

Benoit Jean-Dominique Bertrand Maurice Mory

Jing-Ming Jong

Emmanuel Mocé Serge Attia

Lisa Pumphrey

Paul Detmer

An ultrasound image processing apparatus () is disclosed for obtaining a biometric measurement of an anatomical feature of interest from a 3D ultrasound image. The apparatus comprises a display apparatus () communicatively coupled to a processor arrangement () adapted to render a volumetric ultrasound image () from the 3-D ultrasound image and control the display apparatus to display said rendered image; receive a plurality of user inputs () highlighting the anatomical feature of interest, each input corresponding to a pixel of the displayed volumetric ultrasound image; estimate a depth of each of said pixels in the volumetric ultrasound image (); define a 3-D path () in the volumetric ultrasound image based on the received user inputs along said estimated depths; perform a processing operation based on the defined 3-D path; and control the display apparatus to display the processing operation result, wherein the processing operation based on the defined 3-D path comprises at least one of a measurement of a length of the 3-D path (); a reorientation of the rendered volumetric ultrasound image (); and a generation of a 2-D image slice () of the 3-D ultrasound image based on the defined 3-D path. Also disclosed are an ultrasound imaging system including such an ultrasound image processing apparatus, a computer-implemented method and a computer program product for implementing this method on a computer.

Volume rendered ultrasound imaging

An ultrasound system and method are described for acquiring standard views of the fetal heart simultaneously with real-time imaging. A matrix array probe is manipulated until a first standard view such as a 4-chamber view is acquired. The first standard view image is matched to its corresponding plane in a fetal heart model. From the matched plane of the heart model, the orientations of the other standard views are known from the geometrical relationships of structures within the heart model. This orientation information is used to control the matrix array probe to automatically scan the planes of all of the standard views simultaneously in real-time.

Automatic positioning of standard planes for real-time fetal heart evaluation

An ultrasonic diagnostic imaging system acquires 3D data sets of the fetal heart by use of a gating signal synthesized from detected motion of the fetal heart. A sequence of temporally different echo signals are acquired from a location in the anatomy where motion representative of the heart cycle is to be estimated, such as a sample volume in the fetal carotid artery or an M line through the fetal myocardium. A heart cycle signal is synthesized from the detected motion and used to gate the acquisition of fetal heart image data at one or more desired phases of the fetal heart cycle. In an illustrated embodiment 3D data sets are acquired from multiple subvolumes, each over the full fetal heart cycle, then combined to produce a live 3D loop of the beating fetal heart.

Three dimensional fetal heart imaging by non-ECG physiological gated acquisition

Three dimensional ultrasonic images are formed by volume rendering using a 3D ultrasonic image data set. The data set may be acquired by rocking, sweeping, fanning or rotating a 2D image plane through the volume being scanned, or by steering beams in different angular directions from a two dimensional array of transducer elements. The polar data is volume rendered to form a 3D image by means of projected raylines which are warped to account for the angular geometry of the acquisition.

Volume rendered three dimensional ultrasonic images with polar coordinates

Growing community of inventors

Snohomish, WA, United States of America

Alasdair Dow