Patent ID: 8608659

Claim:
An ultrasonic imaging apparatus comprising: an ultrasonic probe that receives and sends ultrasonic waves from/to an object; an ultrasound image structuring unit configured to generate an ultrasound image on the basis of a reflected echo signal received by the ultrasonic probe; an elastic image structuring unit configured to obtain a strain or an elastic modulus of the elasticity of the object, of a region corresponding to the ultrasound image on the basis of the reflected echo signal, and to generate a color elastic image; a display configured to overlay the color elastic image on the ultrasound image, or arrange the ultrasound image and the color elastic image for side-by-side viewing, and to display the resultant image on a screen; and a setting unit configured to allow selectable setting of a corresponding relationship between a hue of the color elastic image displayed on the screen and the level of the strain or elastic modulus, wherein the color elastic image is displayed with a same hue assigned to all levels of a range of levels where the strain or the elastic modulus is larger or smaller than a preset level of the strain or the elastic modulus; the corresponding relationship between the hue of the color elastic image and the level of the strain or elastic modulus set by the setting unit is displayed on the screen with a color bar; and with the color bar, an amount of the strain or the elastic modulus above the preset level and an amount of the strain or the elastic modulus below the preset level are displayed with different hues and the boundary between the hue having the amount of the strain or the elastic modulus above the preset level and the hue having the amount of the strain or the elastic modulus below the preset level is displayed with another hue.