Patent ID: 8100833

Claim:
An image diagnostic system, comprising: a rotary drive unit a probe positionable in a body cavity, the probe being connectable to the rotary drive unit and configured to repeatedly transmit signals into a body cavity and receive reflected signals which are reflected by biotissue surrounding the body cavity during radial scanning, the radial scanning comprising rotation of the probe by the rotary drive unit; a main control unit configured to produce data based on the reflected signals to construct tomographic images of the body cavity and biotissue; and a display unit configured to display the tomographic images of the body cavity and biotissue; the main control unit comprising: an extraction unit configured to extract portions of the produced data based on a frame rate of the display unit; a first output control unit configured to form, based on the extracted portions of the data extracted by the extraction unit, real time tomographic images of the body cavity and biotissue and to output the real time tomographic images during the radial scanning; a storage device configured to store the produced data; a second output control unit configured to form and output, based on the data stored in the storage device, successive tomographic images after the radial scanning; and wherein the main control unit produces an amount of data for each rotation of the probe, and the first control unit forms each of the real time tomographic images by combining a plurality of the portions of the produced data extracted by the extraction unit based on plural tomographic images from several different rotations of the probe so that each real time tomographic image is formed from said amount of data for each rotation of the probe.