Patent ID: 7278969

Claim:
An ultrasonic observation system, comprising: a long ultrasonic probe having an ultrasonic sending and receiving portion, which can send and receive ultrasound; a holder for holding the ultrasonic probe; a moving member connected to the holder such that the ultrasonic probe can move three-dimensionally; a signal generating member provided at a predetermined position of the ultrasonic probe; a detector for detecting a signal generated by the signal generating member, the detector detecting position information indicative of a three-dimensional direction of a center axis of the ultrasonic probe based on the generated signal; a regulator for regulating the movement of the moving member in order to prevent the ultrasonic sending and receiving portion from moving in the direction of the center axis; a rotation operating portion, which can rotate the ultrasonic probe around an axis, which is an arbitrary one direction of a plurality of propagation directions of the ultrasound transmitted from the ultrasonic sending and receiving portion; a memory for storing two-dimensional ultrasonically observed images of an object in a plurality of directions, which are obtained by the ultrasonic probe in accordance with the rotation operation by the rotation operating portion; and a three-dimensional image forming circuit for processing the position information detected by the detector and the two-dimensional ultrasonically-observed images from the memory so as to form a three-dimensional image.