The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Nov. 25, 1980
Filed:
Nov. 13, 1978
Robert W Cribbs, Placerville, CA (US);
Gary L Engle, Fair Oaks, CA (US);
Litton Industrial Products, Inc., Beverly Hills, CA (US);
Abstract
A Scan Converter for use with an Ultrasonic Imaging System is disclosed, which permits the buffering of sweep address and video data with relatively fewer bits of information. In essence, the propogation path of the ultrasonic pulses is resolved into a pair of vectoral components while the propogation path media is defined by successive contiguous body segments which are to be respectively displayed as video picture elements. A series of first signals indicate the crossing of segment boundaries in the vectoral direction having the faster rate of boundary crossings. A second signal is produced having a unique valve which indicates a boundary crossing by the pulse in the other vectoral direction. Reflections of the ultrasonic pulse are sampled at a rate determined by the first signals; i.e., the rate at which segment boundaries are crossed in the first vectoral direction. The sample values are held for storage in memory. The memory includes a matrix of memory location associated with respective picture elements. The one coordinate of the memory address is successively incremented with the storage of the respective successive values. The second coordinate of the address is incremented by the unique value of the forementioned second signal; in other words, when a segment boundary is crossed in the slower vectoral direction.