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:
Apr. 25, 1995
Filed:
Nov. 26, 1993
Rowland F Saunders, Waukesha, WI (US);
Christopher J Gilling, Pewaukee, WI (US);
James S Lehouillier, Waukesha, WI (US);
General Electric Company, Milwaukee, WI (US);
Abstract
A method for reducing speckle artifact in an ultrasound image using a two-dimensional median filter having a diamond-shaped five-point kernel. The entire pixel image data is passed through the filter in a manner such that the center point of the kernel is effectively stepped down each range vector in sequence. The magnitudes of the pixel data at each of the five points in the kernel are compared and the value which has the middle magnitude is adopted as a new pixel value, which is substituted for the old pixel value at the center point. After a new filtered vector has been formed from the new pixel values produced at successive center points by stepping down one acoustic vector, the kernel is shifted by one vector and stepped down range again. This process continues through the entire set of vectors until a new set of filtered vectors is formed. This filter will remove speckle holes on the order of one pixel in size while preserving good edge definition.