Patent ID: 6875177

Claim:
An ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus comprising: group setting means for setting a plurality of address groups with regard to a beam address array which corresponds to a three-dimensional echo data acquisition space, each address group corresponding to each partial space within the three-dimensional echo data acquisition space; sequence setting means for setting an iterative sequence of beam addresses, which is used for selecting a plurality of beam addresses constituting said beam address array wile selecting beam addresses repeatedly for each of said address groups; address selecting means for selecting the beam addresses in accordance with the iterative sequence which is set by said sequence setting means; beam forming means for forming an ultrasonic beam at a beam address selected by means of said address selecting means to thereby repeatedly form a set of ultrasonic beams for every partial space; and image forming means for forming an ultrasonic image which represents existence or behavior of an ultrasonic contrast agent within the three-dimensional echo data acquisition space based on echo data acquired by repeatedly forming a set of ultrasonic beams for every partial space.