Patent ID: 7988632
Filing Date: 2011-08-02
Classification: A61B,G01S

Abstract:
1. A method for 3D ultrasound imaging, comprising steps of: acquiring volume data associated with polar coordinate locations (r, theta, phi) from a scanning operation of a mechanical ultrasound probe; storing the volume data in a cache; constructing a reconstruction table and a gradient table, wherein the reconstruction table contains entries associating the polar coordinate locations of the volume data with equivalent Cartesian coordinate locations (X, Y, Z), and the gradient table contains entries (p1, p2, p3) for each polar coordinate location of the reconstruction table calculated according to: casting rays to determine an initial sampling point which is assigned with an initial gray scale and an initial opacity; obtaining a Cartesian coordinate location of the initial sampling point; obtaining a polar coordinate location of the initial sampling point according to the initial sampling point's Cartesian coordinate location using the reconstruction table and interpolating gray scale values of locations surrounding the initial sample point to derive an actual gray scale value of the initial sampling point; in response to determining that the actual gray scale value meets a synthetic condition, calculating a gradient of the initial sampling point using the gradient table, and calculating an inner product of a unit vector of the gradient, a unit vector of a ray direction of the initial sampling point, and an accumulated gray scale and an accumulated opacity based in part on the initial gray scale and the initial opacity; and in response to determining that a predetermined termination condition is satisfied, outputting the accumulated gray scale for the pixel corresponding to the initial sampling point on a 3D resultant image.