Patent ID: 7905838

Claim:
An image diagnostic system comprising: a radial scanner; a probe positionable in a body cavity and configured to repeatedly transmit signals and acquire line units of signals reflected from biotissue surrounding the body cavity with the radial scanner; an encoder configured to generate output signals corresponding to rotational angles of the probe upon performing the radial scanning; a control system connected to the probe to receive the acquired reflected line units of signals and produce digital data based on the acquired reflected line units of signals and to construct a tomographic image of the body cavity and the biotissue surrounding the body cavity on the basis of the digital data; and a display unit configured to display the tomographic image; the control system comprising: a generation unit configured to output synchronization signals in synchronization with a timing of acquisition cycles of the acquired signals, the synchronization signals having a higher frequency than the output signals; a selection unit connected to the generation unit to receive the synchronization signals from the generation unit and the output signals generated by the encoder, the selection unit selecting and outputting one of the synchronization signals which is first received subsequent to reception of one of the output signals generated by the encoder; and a conversion unit configured to convert the acquired reflected line units of signals into digital line data and output the digital line data responsive to successive inputs of the synchronization signals selected by the selection unit for use in constructing the tomographic image.