Patent ID: 6306092
Filing Date: 2001-10-23
Classification: G01S,Y10S,Y10T

Abstract:
An imaging system comprising:a rotatable transducer array comprising transducer elements for transmitting wave energy in response to electrical activation and transducing returned wave energy into electrical signals, said transducer array having a center;a rotatable support for said transducer array, said rotatable support having a center of rotation;a beamformer coupled to said transducer array and programmed to activate a plurality of said transducer elements to transmit focused wave energy for each of a multiplicity of transmit focal positions along scan lines that make up each of a plurality of scan planes and to form receive signals from electrical signals produced by said plurality of transducer elements subsequent to each transmit for each scan line in each of said scan planes, said scan lines being generated by rotational scans of said transducer array;a processing subsystem for converting said receive signals into pixel data for each scan line in each of said scan planes;a memory for storing a respective slice of pixel data for each of said scan planes to form a data volume;a computer for calculating offset data representing an estimated distance by which said center of said transducer array is displaced from said center of rotation of said rotatable support, converting the pixel data of said data volume to rectilinear coordinates taking the calculated offset data into account, and projecting the pixel data of said data volume in rectilinear coordinates to form projected image data, said computer comprising means for calculating a first offset along a first rectilinear coordinate direction and means for calculating a second offset along a second rectilinear coordinate direction perpendicular to said first rectilinear coordinate direction; anda subsystem for displaying a projected image which is a function of said projected image data.