Patent ID: 7601121

Claim:
A method for adapting rendering quality for ultrasound imaging of a volume, the method comprising: (a) setting at least one ultrasound acquisition parameter value; (b) scanning the volume as a function of the at least one ultrasound acquisition parameter value, data resulting from the scanning having an acquisition quality; (c) setting with a processor at least one rendering quality parameter value of a rendering algorithm, wherein the setting with the processor of the at least one rendering quality parameter values is operable to determine a trade off between rendering algorithm speed and the rendering quality, wherein the setting with the processor of the at least one rendering quality parameter value is a function of the at least one ultrasound acquisition parameter value, wherein the rendering quality is different from the acquisition quality, and wherein the setting with the processor matches rendering performance to the acquisition quality; (d) rendering an ultrasound image from data acquired by the scan of (b), the rendering being a function of the at least one rendering quality parameter value; and (e) controlling (a) with a single quality control user input labeled for different quality levels, the single control user input operable to select the at least one ultrasound acquisition parameter value from a range of settings; wherein (c) is performed free of user input other than the single control user input of (e).