Patent ID: 7658714

Claim:
In a diagnostic medical ultrasound system, the improvement comprising an event recognition processor, wherein said event recognition processor is configured: a. to recognize one or more non-cyclical distinguished events constituting a subset of an ultrasound examination, the ultrasound examination comprising a rolling stream of a series of ultrasound image data sets during a real-time examination, the recognition being based on analysis by the event recognition processor of the ultrasound image data sets of the ultrasound examination, wherein the one or more non-cyclical distinguished events are temporal events; and b. to select a portion being less than all of the ultrasound examination to be stored or marked based on the recognition of the one or more distinguished events, non-selected portions of the ultrasound examination including ultrasound image data sets after the one or more distinguished events, by performing at least one of the following: i. automatically marking the one or more events; ii. automatically causing the one or more events to be marked; iii. automatically storing the one or more events; iv. automatically causing the one or more distinguished events to be stored; v. automatically terminating storage of a portion of the ultrasound examination; vi. automatically causing termination of storage of a portion of the ultrasound examination; or vii. combinations thereof; further comprising an image characterization capability, wherein said image characterization capability is configured: a. to select a cropping factor based upon characterization of an image; and b. to cause less than an entire field of view of an image to be stored.