Patent ID: 7677078

Claim:
Apparatus for calibrating an ultrasound transducer providing B-scans for two-dimensional (2D) images, said apparatus comprising: a sensing device attached to said transducer, said sensing device cooperating with a fixed sensing unit for providing an output for labeling respective B-scans with their respective relative positions and orientations (poses); a calibration phantom bath including a phantom therein, said transducer being immersed in said bath for imaging said phantom; said phantom comprising a line object with distinctive encoding indicative of position along said line object, said line object being generally disposed about an axis substantially concentric with an axis of rotation of said transducer and in the field of view of said transducer; means for enabling rotation of one of said transducer and said phantom about said axis of rotation for obtaining successive B-scan images of said line object exhibiting said distinctive encoding; means for deriving relative transducer pose information from said distinctive encoding in said successive B-scan images; and means for deriving transducer pose information relative to said fixed sensing unit by combining said output thereof and said relative transducer pose information.