A system for acquiring ultrasound response data for vascular tissue, the system comprising: a catheter, at least a portion of which is insertable into a vascular structure, a transducer probe, mounted upon a distal end of the catheter, including at least one ultrasound transducer element, the transducer probe being configured such that activation of the transducer probe results in an ultrasound excitation signal being transmitted by the transducer probe toward vascular tissue and an ultrasound echo signal arising from the excitation signal being receivable by the transducer probe; an analog-to-digital converter configured to receive an analog signal corresponding to the ultrasound echo signal and to render therefrom a scan line of backscattered ultrasound data; and a computing device including a set of computer-executable instructions stored on a computer-readable physical medium, characterized by the computer-executable instructions being configured to carry out, by the computing device, the steps of: applying a one-dimensional homomorphic deconvolution operation to digital data corresponding to the scan line of backscattered ultrasound data to render an estimated scan-line system transfer function while the catheter is inside the vascular structure, and calculating, using a system transfer function based upon the estimated scan-line system transfer function, ultrasound response data for the vascular tissue, wherein the computer-executable instructions on the computing device are configured to carry out the applying step multiple times to render a set of estimated scan-line system transfer functions within a single image frame, and the system transfer function is an average of the set of estimated scan-line system transfer functions within the single image frame. a catheter, at least a portion of which is insertable into a vascular structure, a transducer probe, mounted upon a distal end of the catheter, including at least one ultrasound transducer element, the transducer probe being configured such that activation of the transducer probe results in an ultrasound excitation signal being transmitted by the transducer probe toward vascular tissue and an ultrasound echo signal arising from the excitation signal being receivable by the transducer probe; an analog-to-digital converter configured to receive an analog signal corresponding to the ultrasound echo signal and to render therefrom a scan line of backscattered ultrasound data; and a computing device including a set of computer-executable instructions stored on a computer-readable physical medium, characterized by the computer-executable instructions being configured to carry out, by the computing device, the steps of: applying a one-dimensional homomorphic deconvolution operation to digital data corresponding to the scan line of backscattered ultrasound data to render an estimated scan-line system transfer function while the catheter is inside the vascular structure, and calculating, using a system transfer function based upon the estimated scan-line system transfer function, ultrasound response data for the vascular tissue, wherein the computer-executable instructions on the computing device are configured to carry out the applying step multiple times to render a set of estimated scan-line system transfer functions within a single image frame, and the system transfer function is an average of the set of estimated scan-line system transfer functions within the single image frame.