Patent ID: 7720266

Claim:
A method for enhancing an ultrasound image for use in an ultrasound imaging system, comprising steps of: a) operating a computing device of the ultrasound imaging system to read the ultrasound image; b) segmenting the ultrasound image into a feature region and a non-feature region based on applying a gradient threshold and a gray threshold, respectively, to gradient information and gray-scale information in the image, and then performing different data processing on the image classified as the feature region and the non-feature region respectively, wherein the data processing on the image data classified as the non-feature region comprises a step of smoothing the image by using a local gray-scale adjustment of various pixels, comprising sub-steps of: dividing the input image into blocks, and computing a gray scale mean of each blocked image, Mean block ; setting different gray-scale adjustment coefficients R adjust based on the different gradient values of various pixels in the input ultrasonic image; and computing an adjusted gray scale intensity I adjusted to produce a local gray-scale adjusted image, I adjusted =Mean block +(I in -Mean block )*R adjust , where I in represents the gray scale intensity of the input image; c) merging the processed feature region and non-feature region to produce an enhanced image; and d) displaying the enhanced image on a display device of the ultrasound imaging system.