Siemens Medical Systems, Inc.

Robert N Phelps

Jin H Kim

Zoran B Banjanin

Lin X Yao

Scott D Otterson

Richard M Pier

Jeffrey T Reeve

King-Yuen Wong

Douglas E Hewett

Thomas A Gould

An ultrasound system produces composite color flow images of tissue samples. To reduce image flicker, the ultrasound system stores the data required to produce two sequential color flow images and computes a series of interpolated images that are displayed between the actual color flow images. A piece-wise interpolation function is used to create the interpolated images in order to prevent artificial smoothing of the image data. In addition, the ultrasound system quantizes the ultrasound data used to compute the interpolated images in order to reduce the amount of memory required to store the data for the sequential color flow images.

Method and apparatus for performing frame interpolation in an ultrasound

A method and apparatus is provided for converting the frame rate of digital video data from one frame rate to another frame rate without introducing motion artifacts into the converted video data stream. A high frame rate video stream is converted into a lower frame rate video stream by selecting whole frames from the high frame rate video stream and outputting the selected frames as the lower frame rate video stream. To insure that only whole frames are selected from the high frame rate video stream, the frame rate of the high frame rate video stream is locked to the frame rate of the lower frame rate video stream. A frame cycle is defined to be an integer number of frames in the higher frame rate stream. The higher and lower frame rates are locked by repeatedly selecting and outputting as the lower frame rate video stream, over a time period that is substantially equal to one frame cycle, an integer number of frames from each frame cycle of the higher frame rate.

Video format conversion process and apparatus

Time-of-flight calculations may be simplified by performing them on the fly at selected intervals and then interpolating the results to obtain a comprehensive set of values. The method and apparatus offer improved accuracy, speed, and hardware savings.

Real-time dynamic time-of-flight calculator

An ultrasound pulsed Doppler system detects Doppler-shifted acoustic pulses reflected from moving material in a body and received by a transducer, and displays the velocity field of the material on a screen in a color flow format together with the black-and-white display of the ultrasound B-mode of the body. The system detects the average velocity of the material at a plurality of localized sample regions in the body by determining the complex correlation function for pairs of reflected signals from each sample region that are received by the transducer, where the complex phase of the correlation function is proportional to the velocity of the material, projected along the ray from the sample region to the transducer. The display constitutes an array of pixels, and the system determines a value at each pixel that represents the velocity for the material at the location imaged by the pixel. These velocity values are determined by selecting, for each pixel, a plurality of sample regions having images neighboring the pixel, and interpolating separately the real and imaginary parts of the complex correlation value from these sample regions. These interpolated complex correlation function values are used to determine the velocity value for the pixel. The interpolation is carried out using a 2.times.4 kernel, with 2-point interpolation along the dimension of the ray and 4-point interpolation along the perpendicular azimuthal dimension. In a further improvement, the system also displays the flow turbulence field in a color flow format by determining the average power in the reflected signals from each sample region, interpolating these values to obtain a pixel power value, and using this value and the magnitude of the complex correlation function value to obtain a turbulence estimate value.

Growing community of inventors

Issaquah, WA, United States of America

Robert N Phelps