Methods and systems for storing and processing a plurality of fractions of imaging data thereby minimizing the amount of cache memory necessary while controlling data loss and the resulting image quality.

An ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus according to a present embodiment includes: a transmitting and receiving circuit configured to transmit an ultrasonic wave to an ultrasonic probe and receive a signal based on the ultrasonic wave received by the ultrasonic probe; a generation circuit configured to generate multiple 2D image data in a chronological order based on the signal; an acquisition circuit configured to acquire multiple positional data of the ultrasonic probe; a memory circuit; a processing circuit configured to perform processing in such a manner that the multiple 2D image data arranged in the memory circuit according to the multiple positional data fit inside a memory space of the memory circuit; and a volume generation circuit configured to generate volume data in the memory space based on the processed multiple 2D image data.

A low power ultrasound system for use in sonography applications, including vascular imaging, is disclosed. The low power ultrasound system includes a base unit having an image processor and a display. An ultrasound probe is operably connected to the base unit. The probe includes a head portion including an array of crystal transducers. A plurality of pulser/receiver modules that cause the transducers to emit ultrasonic transmit pulses are also included in the probe. The pulser/receiver modules are further configured to receive analog signals relating to ultrasonic echo receive pulses detected by the transducers. The probe includes a singular low noise amplifier that amplifies the analog signals, and an analog-to-digital converter that converts the analog signals to a digital signal. A wireless interface is included for enabling the digital signal to be wirelessly transmitted from the probe to the image processor of the base unit.

The ultrasound probe transmits and receives ultrasonic waves in different directions and the diagnostic apparatus body combines a plurality of images captured in the different directions of transmission and reception to produce an ultrasound image. In this process, the ultrasound diagnostic apparatus measures the temperature of the ultrasound probe to change the ultrasound transmission and reception for producing a composite ultrasound image or makes the directions of transmission and reception in the last ultrasound image in one composite ultrasound image coincide with those in the first ultrasound image in its temporally adjacent composite ultrasound image. The ultrasound diagnostic apparatus thus enables consistent ultrasound diagnosis against heat generated in the integrated circuit board of the ultrasound probe while simplifying the control of the ultrasound transmission and reception.

Provided are a method and device for ultrasonic imaging by synthetic focusing. The method comprises: exciting a plurality of matrix elements of an ultrasonic probe to transmit plane waves many times, wherein transmitting apodizations at the time of every transmission of the plane waves by the plurality of matrix elements correspond to the respective lines in a measurement matrix in which elements are randomly distributed; after every transmission of the plane waves, exciting all the matrix elements of the ultrasonic probe to receive echo signals, in order to obtain channel data; recovering a synthetic focusing channel data set by use of a compressed sensing reconstruction algorithm according to a channel data set and the measurement matrix; and subjecting the synthetic focusing channel data set to beamforming so as to generate an ultrasonic image.

In an image compressing ultrasound system, for generating an imaging sample, delays are applied transducer-element-wise to respective time samples. The delayed samples are summed coherently in time, the coherently summed delays being collectively non-focused. An image is sparsified based on imaging samples and, otherwise than merely via said imaging samples, on angles (236) upon which respectively the delays for the generating of the imaging samples are functionally dependent. An image-compressing processor (120) may minimize a first p-norm of a first matrix which is a product of two matrices the content of one representing the image in a compression basis. The minimizing is subject to a constraint that a second p-norm of a difference between a measurement matrix and a product of an image-to-measurement-basis transformation matrix, an image representation dictionary matrix, and the matrix representing the image in the compression basis does not exceed an allowed-error threshold. The measurement matrix is populated either by channel data, or by output of a Hilbert transform applied to the channel data in a time dimension.

The embodiments of the present disclosure disclose an ultrasound imaging method and system, the method may include transmitting a plurality of plane wave ultrasound beams to a scan target and acquiring corresponding plane wave echo signals; transmitting focused ultrasound beams to the scan target and acquiring corresponding focused beam echo signals; acquiring a plurality of velocity components of a target point in the scan target using the plane wave echo signals, and acquiring velocity vectors of the target point according to the plurality of velocity components; acquiring an ultrasound image of the scan target using the focused beam echo signals; and displaying the velocity vector and the ultrasound image.

The array-type scanning acoustic tomograph includes a selection unit to select the elements constituting a vibrator group that connects vibrator drive signals and reception signals. The vibrator group is divided into a first group that emits ultrasonic beams to a former half of an ultrasonic beam irradiation region and a second group that emits ultrasonic beams to a latter half of the ultrasonic beam irradiation region. The selection unit is instructed to select the vibrator groups of the first group to emit ultrasonic beams, instructed to select the vibrator group of the second group to emit ultrasonic beams, then the selection unit is instructed to select the vibrator groups of the first group to receive reflected ultrasonic waves, and then instructed to select the vibrator group of the second group to receive reflected ultrasonic wave, and the same waveforms are displayed on a display unit without overlapping.

An object information acquiring apparatus is used which has an irradiating unit irradiating an object with light with a first wavelength at a first irradiation frequency, an element receiving an acoustic wave generated by the object irradiated with the light to output an electric signal, a processing unit acquiring characteristic information on the object using the electric signal, a scanning unit changing position of the irradiating unit relative to the object, and a controlling unit controlling movement of the scanning unit. The controlling unit controls the scanning unit such that an amount of light to which an identical area of the object is exposed is larger than a smallest value of a maximum permissible exposure at the first irradiation frequency.

An ultrasound imaging system (102) includes a transducer array (108) with a two-dimensional array of rows (110) of transducer elements (114). The transducer elements of each row extend along a long axis (116). The rows are parallel to each other. The transducer array includes a non-rectangular set of active transducer elements. The ultrasound imaging system further includes transmit circuitry (118) that actuates the transducer elements to transmit an ultrasound signal. The ultrasound imaging system further includes receive circuitry (120) that receives echoes produced in response to an interaction between the ultrasound signal and a structure and received by the transducer elements. The ultrasound imaging system further includes a beamformer that processes the echoes and generates one or more scan lines indicative of the structure.