Patent ID: 8131041

Claim:
A method for imaging a structure, the method comprising: obtaining two dimensional (2D) x-ray image data; obtaining three dimensional (3D) ultrasound image volume data; creating a 2D representation of the 3D ultrasound image volume data with respect to an area of interest corresponding to the 2D x-ray image data, including: selecting a slice volume of thickness “d” from the volume data corresponding to a plane representative of the 2D x-ray image data; performing a volume rendering operation on the sliced volume; blending the 2D representation of the 3D ultrasound image volume data with the 2D x-ray image data rendering a 2D blended image of the structure, wherein the blending including alpha blending, the alpha blending including an alpha value (α), between 0 and 1, giving a ratio in which two overlapping pixels contribute to a color of a screen pixel by the following equation: C out,RGB ( x,y )=α C xray,RGB ( x,y )+(1−α) C us,RGB ( x,y ); and displaying the 2D blended image of the structure.