Patent ID: 8702610

Claim:
A method for creating an image of a region of interest of a body comprising: transmitting a first ultrasonic pulse into the region of interest; sensing first receive signals corresponding to ultrasonic energy from the first ultrasonic pulse reflected from within the region of interest; transmitting a second ultrasonic pulse into the region of interest; sensing second receive signals corresponding to ultrasonic energy from the second ultrasonic pulse reflected from within the region of interest; creating the image of the region of interest as a function of the first and second receive signals; interleaving discretized representations of the first and second receive signals to form a resultant operating signal; and creating the image as a function of the resultant operating signal; wherein the second ultrasonic pulse is phase-shifted relative to the first ultrasonic pulse by an amount greater than zero degrees and less than 180 degrees, wherein K receive signals, corresponding to echo signals from respective, relatively phase-offset transmitted ultrasonic pulses, are discretized and interleaved to form the resultant operating signal, wherein the K receive signals include at least the first and second receive signals, and wherein: K is two or greater; the phase shift is chosen such that the second ultrasonic pulse is transmitted with a time delay of 1/K·f s ; and the receive signals are discretized with an initial sampling rate of f s .