The invention relates to a method for ocular ultrasound using an ultrasound probe comprising a plurality of transducer elements organised in at least n concentric rings forming n transducer rings (2, 2a, 2b, 2c, 2d, 2e), the transducer rings being grouped together in k groups of rings. Said method comprises the following steps: for each cycle (100, 110, 200, 210, 300, 310) of a plurality of cycles of k iterations using a different group of transducer rings and working through the groups of transducer rings: exciting a group of transducer rings in order to emit ultrasound waves; collecting n measuring signals from the n transducer rings; combining the n measuring signals in order to provide an ultrasound line representing the response of the n transducer rings when ultrasound waves are emitted; combining k ultrasound lines resulting from the most recent k iterations into a displayable line; and treating and displaying the displayable lines.

The disclosed invention is a computer-implemented process that identifies and extracts distinctive data characteristics from a linear array of time-sequenced A-mode ultrasonic backscatter amplitude data, where such distinctive data characteristics are indicative of material identity. The disclosed invention uses such distinctive data characteristics to create a plausible inference about whether or not an investigatory material belongs to a specific class of ultrasonically permeable materials of known classification.

The disclosed invention is a computer-implemented method for constructing, recording, displaying and exporting a plurality of multi-parameter two-dimensional buffered image data arrays in a plurality of visual presentation formats constructed from one-dimensional single-parameter ultrasonic a-scan backscatter data, whereby quantitative relationships in a-scan backscatter data that are indicative of material identity may be more easily detected by visual analysis and more easily detected by automated inference methods.