Patent ID: 8663113

Claim:
A method for imaging a volume of tissue within an acoustic coupling medium in a scan region, comprising: emitting acoustic waveforms from transmitting transducers toward the volume of tissue; detecting, with detecting transducers, a plurality of acoustic signals derived from acoustic waveforms interacting with the volume of tissue; generating, from the plurality of acoustic signals, a plurality of variable attenuation maps, wherein each variable attenuation map corresponds to a respective detecting transducer and the acoustic signals detected by the respective detecting transducer, and wherein each variable attenuation map includes a plurality of variable attenuation coefficients mapped to the scan region, comprising the volume of tissue and the acoustic coupling medium, for the corresponding detecting transducer, wherein at least a subset of the plurality of variable attenuation coefficients, characterizing the acoustic coupling medium, comprises unequal variable attenuation coefficients, such that the subset is not defined by a constant attenuation coefficient; transforming at least a portion of the plurality of acoustic signals into a set of modified acoustic signals based upon at least one variable attenuation map of the plurality of variable attenuation maps; and generating a reflection rendering of the volume of tissue based upon the set of modified acoustic signals.