Koninklijke Philips Corporation N.V.

Advanced Technology Laboratories, Inc.

Atl Ultrasound, Inc.

Clifford R Cooley

Brent Stephen Robinson

David N Roundhill

Jeffry E Powers

John Douglas Fraser

Michalakis Averkiou

Robert Randall Entrekin

Gary Allen Schwartz

Matthew Bruce

Danny M Skyba

Ronald Elvin Daigle

Patrick Ren&eacute; Pesque

Thomas J Sabourin

Karl E Thiele

Juin-Jet Hwang

Jean-Luc Robert

David W Rust

Michael R Burcher

Robert R Entrekin

Mikhail Starosta

Patrick Rene' Pesque

An ultrasonic diagnostic imaging system produces an image with an extended focal range by transmitting a plurality of beams spaced along an array for multiline reception. The receive multilines of a plurality of transmit beams are spatially aligned and are combined with phase adjustment between the respective receive multilines to prevent undesired phase cancellation. The combined multilines produce the effect of an extended transmit focus so that an image produced using the combined multilines exhibits an extended focal range. To prevent motion artifacts the multiline order is adjustable as a function of image motion.

Ultrasonic synthetic transmit focusing with a multiline beamformer

A synthetic focus ultrasound system is described in which individual transducer elements are activated to insonify the image field and the resultant echoes are received by a plurality of elements of the array. The echo signals are stored and the complete echo set is used to produce motion maps for different velocity vectors over the image field. Various ones of the motion maps are used to produce a wide variety of ultrasound image modes, including grey-scale images, colorflow images, and spectral flow displays.

Synthetically focused ultrasonic diagnostic imaging system for tissue and flow imaging

An ultrasonic imaging method and apparatus are described for imaging the coronary arteries of the heart. The vascular system is infused with an ultrasonic contrast agent. A volumetric region of the heart wall including a coronary artery is three dimensionally scanned. A projection image of the volumetric region is produced from the scanning, providing a two dimensional contrast image of the coronary artery with the appearance of an angiogram. Preferably the coronary artery signals are segmented from contrast signals emanating from the myocardium and the heart blood pool so that the coronary arteries are clearly highlighted and distinct in the ultrasonic angiogram.

Ultrasonic diagnostic imaging transducer with hexagonal patches

Ultrasonic diagnostic imaging with interpolated scanlines

Three dimensional ultrasonic diagnostic imaging with high density hexagonal acquisition

Ultrasonic diagnostic imaging system transducer array with multiline patches

Ultrasonic diagnostic imaging of the coronary arteries

An ultrasonic diagnostic imaging system is provided which produces scanlines with synthesized transmit foci at a high frame rate of display. Beams are transmitted and received which have different beam steering and focal characteristics. At least one of the received beams is weighted and the steering and focal characteristics of the weighted received beams are interpolated to form scanlines for display which exhibit the focal properties of both beams.

Ultrasonic diagnostic imaging system with high frame rate synthetic transmit focus

An ultrasonic diagnostic imaging system is provided with synthesized transmit focus. Several beams are transmitted, each with a different transmit focus. Echoes received from the differently focused beams are combined to form a scanline with an extended focus. The echoes are preferably weighted and/or phase adjusted prior to being combined. Combining is performed in the r.f. domain before nonlinear processing of the signals such as amplitude detection. The resultant extended focus scanline exhibits the property of dynamic transmit focusing.

Ultrasonic diagnostic imaging system with synthesized transmit focus

A method and apparatus are provided for interpolating image lines from ultrasonically obtained scanlines of an image region. The interpolated lines are preferably formed one-quarter and three-quarters of the distance between each pair of received scanlines by combining weighted samples of the adjacent scanlines in proportion to their distances from the interpolated lines. The received scanlines are preferably formed by a beamformer which samples the received lines at quadrature phases of the scanhead center frequency and filters the samples by combining successive samples of a related phase. The image lines are scan converted by computing a grid of weighted values between each pair of image lines, and using the closest value for each pixel in the ultrasound image.

High resolution ultrasonic imaging through interpolation of received

A technique for scanning an image field with adjacent beams of ultrasonic energy is provided in which initially transmitted beams are transmitted along beam directions at the lateral sides of the image field. Subsequent beams are alternately transmitted on either side of the initially transmitted beams and at lateral locations which converge toward the center of the image field until the full image field has been scanned. In an alternate embodiment initially transmitted beams are transmitted on one side of the center of the image field, subsequent beams diverge from the locations of the initially transmitted beams, and concluding beams laterally converge at a location on the other side of the center of the image field.

Ultrasonic diagnostic image scanning techniques

An ultrasonic diagnostic imaging system is provided which scans an image region to receive a plurality of spatially arranged lines of ultrasonic image information signals. These ultrasonic line information signals are used in an interpolater to interpolate one or more lines which are spatially interlineated between each pair of spatially adjoining received lines. These interpolated lines are produced using either the received RF or demodulated IF ultrasonic image information signals. The interpolated lines are produced prior to scan conversion, and preferably prior to nonlinear processing such as detection or log compression to reduce spatial aliasing artifacts. In one preferred embodiment the interpolater comprises a transversal filter of four taps which is responsive to received line information signals from a common range or depth. In a second embodiment the interpolater is adaptively responsive to motion to select samples for interpolation which would be spatially at the same range in the absence of motional effects.

Ultrasonic imaging system with interpolated scan lines

A technique for increasing the display frame rate of a medical ultrasound imaging system. The system receives trigger signals, each based upon the occurrence of a predetermined event in a subject's cardiac cycle, such as an R-wave. In one technique, in response to each trigger signal, the ultrasound system acquires a series of frames, each frame comprising data representing an image of a portion of the subject's body at an associated acquisition time. A frame time is determined for each frame, each frame time being the time from the preceding trigger signal to the acquisition time for the frame. Two or more frame series are then played back in order of increasing frame times, thereby producing a display frame rate higher than the acquisition frame rate.

High frame rate ultrasound system

Growing community of inventors

Seattle, WA, United States of America

Clifford R Cooley