Patent ID: 7380456
Filing Date: 2008-06-03
Classification: G01N

Abstract:
1. A three-dimensional ultrasonographic device, comprising: an ultrasonic transducer composed of a plurality of piezoelectric vibrators; a vibrator selecting part which causes an arbitrary one of the plurality of piezoelectric vibrators to generate an ultrasonic wave; a signal detecting circuit which selectively detects electrical signals that the plurality of piezoelectric vibrators generate when receiving echoes of the ultrasonic wave, which is generated by the piezoelectric vibrator selected by said vibrator selecting part to be reflected on an inspection object via an acoustic medium; a signal processing part which generates three-dimensional imaging data by aperture synthesizing from the electrical signals detected by said signal detecting circuit, in correspondence to meshes in a three-dimensional imaging area set in the inspection object; and a display processing part which has: a function of changing brightness or transparency of respective meshes in the three-dimensional imaging area, according to values of the three-dimensional imaging data generated by the signal processing part, that the respective meshes have for the three-dimensional imaging data; a function of applying masking or image brightness correction to an image of an unnecessary portion of the three-dimensional imaging data, by multiplying the value of the three-dimensional imaging data by a value set according to a three-dimensional coordinate position (X, Y, Z), and a two-dimensional image generating part which sees through the three-dimensional imaging data from three directions straight to one another and projects, on a two-dimensional plane, data with the largest value out of imaging data stacked in each of the see-through directions out of the three-dimensional imaging data to thereby generate three two-dimensional images in the respective three directions.