Patent ID: 8083680

Claim:
An ultrasound system for forming an ultrasound image, comprising: a volume data acquiring unit configured to acquire volume data by transmitting/receiving ultrasound signals to/from a target object of an un-echoic area; and an image processing unit configured to perform inverse volume rendering upon the volume data to form a 3-dimensional image showing the target object; and a user input unit configured to receive a user input including setup information for setting a start point and an end point of the target object on the 3-dimensional image, wherein the image processing unit includes a ROI setting unit configured to set a first shortest line from the start point to the end point, automatically detect a first boundary point of the un-echoic area along the first shortest line for setting a first straight line from the start point to the first boundary point, detect a second boundary point in a direction of a predetermined angle from the first boundary point for setting a second straight line from the first boundary point to the second boundary point, set a second shortest line from the second boundary point to the end point, repeatedly perform the detection of boundary points and the setting of the straight lines and the shortest lines until the straight line is connected to the end point without passing through a boundary point, and set the ROI based on the start point, the end point, and the detected boundary points; a position detecting unit configured to detect positions of voxels corresponding to the ROI; and a reformatting unit configured to reformat data corresponding to the detected positions to the planar image with gray levels of brightness.