Patent ID: 7850611

Claim:
A method for ultrasonic imaging of an object, the method comprising: in turn, for each transmitter in a plurality of transmitters, transmitting ultrasound energy from the transmitter into the object such that the ultrasound energy is scattered and detecting the scattered energy at each of a plurality of receivers to obtain signals corresponding to a plurality of transmitter-receiver pairs wherein each transmitter-receiver pair is characterized by a value, N, indicative of a spatial separation between the transmitter and the receiver of the transmitter-receiver pair; processing the signals by: preparing a first page by: for each pixel in a plurality of pixels within the object, sampling a plurality of those of the signals corresponding to transmitter-receiver pairs characterized by a first value of N at a first index representing a time delay corresponding to the pixel, transmitter and receiver to yield a first set of sample values corresponding to the pixel the first set of sample values including only sample values from transmitter-receiver pairs having the first value for N; and combining the values of the first set of sample values to provide first pixel values associated with the first page of data; and preparing one or more additional pages, each corresponding to a different value for N by: for each pixel in the plurality of pixels, sampling a plurality of those of the signals corresponding to transmitter-receiver pairs characterized by the value of N corresponding to the page at a second index corresponding to the pixel, transmitter and receiver to yield another set of sample values corresponding to the pixel the another set of sample values including only sample values from transmitter-receiver pairs having the value of N corresponding to the additional page; and combining the values of the another sets of sample values to yield pixel values associated with the additional page; and, displaying image data based on at least one of the pages.