Patent ID: 8417475

Claim:
An elasticity imaging machine comprising: an imaging system adapted to acquire first and second speckle fields in a region of interest of a material with the material in a respective first and second state of deformation; an electronic computer providing an output display and receiving the speckle fields from the imaging system and executing a stored program to: (a) determine first displacement vectors for each of spatially separated first region pairs of corresponding regions in each of the first and second speckle fields, each first displacement vector indicating tissue displacement in one of the first region pairs between the first and second state of deformation; (b) qualify the first displacement vectors for the first region pairs with respect to both similarity between the speckle fields in the region pairs and continuity of displacement in neighboring region pairs of each first region pair; and (c) use the qualified first displacement vectors of selected first region pairs selected according to the qualification to guide the deternination of second displacement vectors in second region pairs surrounding the particular first region pairs.