Volume rendered ultrasound imaging

Abstract

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.