Systems and methods for increasing effective line density of volume compound ultrasound images while maintaining the frame rate, penetration depth, and other image characteristics are provided. The method includes acquiring a first lateral plane at a first elevational position. The first lateral plane includes a first set of receive lines at a first set of lateral positions. The method includes acquiring a second lateral plane at a second elevational position adjacent the first elevational position. The second lateral plane includes a second set of receive lines at a second set of lateral positions laterally offset from the first set of lateral positions. The method includes combining the first lateral plane and the second lateral plane to generate a compound image and presenting the compound image at a display system. The compound image may be a volume compound image in an A-plane generated based on volume compound imaging rendering algorithms.

A medical system includes an ultrasound probe and a processor. The ultrasound probe is configured for insertion into an organ of a body and includes (i) a two-dimensional (2D) ultrasound transducer array, and (ii) a sensor configured to output signals indicative of a position and orientation of the 2D ultrasound transducer array inside the organ. The processor is configured to (a) using the signals output by the sensor, register multiple ultrasound image sections, acquired by the 2D ultrasound transducer array, with one another, (b) produce a union of the multiple registered ultrasound image sections, to form a rendering of at least a portion of the organ, and (c) present the rendering to a user.

Methods, apparatus, systems and articles of manufacture to combine frames of overlapping scanning systems are disclosed. An example apparatus includes a time delay controller to determine a first time value and a second time value, the first time value different from the second time value; a capture synchronizer to, in response to the first time value corresponding to a first time, capture a first frame from a first scanning system and, in response to the second time value corresponding to a second time, capture a second frame from a second scanning system; and a capture combiner to combine the first frame and the second frame into a third frame, the third frame including data from the first frame and data from the second frame.

The purpose is to provide an ultrasound imaging device capable of automatically detecting a boundary of a biological tissue in an ultrasound image. An ultrasound imaging device includes an image generation module which receives ultrasound waves transmitted from a surface of an analyte toward an inside of the analyte and reflected therein to generate an ultrasound image inside the analyte, a reference point setting module which sets a reference point of a tissue of interest of the ultrasound image, a first seed point imparting module which imparts one or more seed points to the ultrasound image with reference point, and a region demarcating module which demarcates a region to which the seed point belongs and divides an image region of the analyte included in the ultrasound image into a plurality of regions according to a type of tissue.

To register a position and an angle of a scanning surface of an ultrasound probe easily and accurately. A phantom including two or more wires stretched in a non-parallel manner is disposed in a real space in which a position detection sensor is disposed. An ultrasound probe, to which a probe position detection marker is attached, is moved on the phantom in a parallel manner while keeping an orientation of a main plane of the ultrasound probe constant. Two or more ultrasound images of the phantom are acquired while detecting a position of the probe position detection marker in the real space with the position detection sensor. Positions of cross-sectional images of the two or more wires included in each of the two or more ultrasound images are obtained. A relation between the position of the probe position detection marker in the real space and orientations and positions of the captured ultrasound images in the real space is calculated based on a relation between the obtained positions of the cross-sectional images. The calculated relation as probe coordinate transformation information is registered in a storage unit.

A shared-housing ultrasound transducer and machine-vision camera system is disclosed for registering the transducer's x, y, z position in space and pitch, yaw, and roll orientation with respect to an object, such as a patient's body. The position and orientation are correlated with transducer scan data, and scans of the same region of the object are compared in order to reduce ultrasound artifacts and speckles. The system can be extended to interoperative gamma probes or other non-contact sensor probes and medical instruments. Methods are disclosed for computer or remote guiding of a sensor probe or instrument with respect to saved positions and orientations of the sensor probe.

A method (100) for visualizing a section of a patient's vascular system (155) with an ultrasound image processing system (3) is disclosed. The method comprises receiving (103) ultrasound data generated by an ultrasound probe (10) being displaced across a part of the patients anatomy (150) containing the section of the patients vascular system, said ultrasound data comprising image data and Doppler data; generating (107) ultrasound images (170) from said image data, each ultrasound image corresponding to a subsection of the patients vascular system having a determined location within the patients vascular system and combining (109) said ultrasound images into a map (180) of said section of the patients vascular system; processing (111) the received Doppler data to obtain blood flow characteristics for the section of the patients vascular system; identifying (113) landmarks within the section of the patients vascular system based on the obtained blood flow characteristics; annotating (115) said map with said landmark identifications (181, 183); and generating (117) an output signal comprising said annotated map. Also disclosed are a computer program product and ultrasound image processing system for implementing this method.

An ultrasonic diagnostic imaging system scans a plurality of planar slices in a volumetric region which are parallel to each other. Following detection of the image data of the slices the slice data is combined by projecting the data in the elevation dimension to produce a “thick slice” image. Combining may be by means of an averaging or maximum intensity detection or weighting process or by raycasting in the elevation dimension in a volumetric rendering process. Thick slice images are displayed at a high frame rate of display by combining a newly acquired slice with slices previously acquired from different elevational planes which were used in a previous combination. A new thick slice image may be produced each time at least one of the slice images is updated by a newly acquired slice. Frame rate is further improved by multiline acquisition of the slices.

Various methods and systems are provided for transforming a style of an image into a different style while preserving content of the image. In one example, a method includes transforming a first image acquired via a medical imaging system into a second image based on visual characteristics of a third image using a system of deep neural networks configured to separate visual characteristics from content of an image, where the second image includes a content of the first image and the visual characteristics of the third image and the first and second images have different visual characteristics. The transformed second image may then be presented to a user.

The invention provides a method of stabilising an ultrasound image, the method comprising generating a composite image of a current image and at least one previous image. The composite image has a region of interest which is stabilised based on at least obtained stabilisation information. Use of a current image and at least one previous image allows a composite image of a larger size to be produced.