| Patent Number |
Title Of Patent |
Date Issued |
| 8245577 |
Pulse period jitter for artifact detection or reduction in ultrasound imaging |
August 21, 2012 |
| Depth ambiguity artifact is addressed. The pulse repetition interval is periodically varied. This jitter in the interval causes variance in the artifact while maintaining actual tissue or signal. The variation of the artifact may be visually detected or automatically detected and reduced |
| 8241216 |
Coherent image formation for dynamic transmit beamformation |
August 14, 2012 |
| Retrospective dynamic transmit beamformation is provided in medical ultrasound imaging. Using parallel receive beamformation, sets of data representing locations in at least a common field of view are obtained, each set in response to a transmit with a spatially distinct phase front. |
| 8170318 |
Filter bank for ultrasound image enhancement |
May 1, 2012 |
| Image enhancement is provided in ultrasound imaging. A filter bank is used to process the data. The data may be processed in parallel. Each filter outputs data representing a same location, but with a kernel path (e.g., line, curved line, area, curved surface, or volume) different than |
| 7998074 |
Image plane stabilization for medical imaging |
August 16, 2011 |
| A medical imaging system automatically acquires two-dimensional images representing a user-defined region of interest despite motion. The plane of acquisition is updated or altered adaptively as a function of detected motion. The user-designated region of interest is then continually |
| 7993272 |
Image plane stabilization for medical imaging |
August 9, 2011 |
| A medical imaging system automatically acquires two-dimensional images representing a user-defined region of interest despite motion. The plane of acquisition is updated or altered adaptively as a function of detected motion. The user-designated region of interest is then continually |
| 7887487 |
Ultrasound diagnostic flow imaging with coded excitation |
February 15, 2011 |
| Diagnostic ultrasound flow imaging is performed with coded excitation pulses. Due to the use of frequency coded excitation pulses, flow information may suffer from spatial misregistration and estimate errors. Spatial position shift in flow data is offset for alignment with B-mode or |
| 7887486 |
Adaptive grating lobe suppression in ultrasound imaging |
February 15, 2011 |
| Adaptive grating lobe suppression is provided. Received ultrasound data is measured, compared or otherwise processed to determine the presence of grating lobe energy. A further process is then altered as a function of the level of grating lobe energy. In one embodiment, the adaptive grat |
| 7764818 |
Surface parameter adaptive ultrasound image processing |
July 27, 2010 |
| The depth buffer of a GPU is used to derive a surface normal or other surface parameter, avoiding or limiting computation of spatial gradients in 3D data sets and extra loading of data into the GPU. The surface parameter is used: to add shading with lighting to volume renderings of u |
| 7744532 |
Coherence factor adaptive ultrasound imaging methods and systems |
June 29, 2010 |
| Ultrasound imaging adapts as a function of a coherence factor. Various beamforming, image forming or image processing parameters are varied as a function of a coherence factor to improve detail resolution, contrast resolution, dynamic range or SNR. For example, a beamforming parameter |
| 7682311 |
Phase unwrapped velocity display for ultrasound medical imaging |
March 23, 2010 |
| Phase unwrapping is applied to velocity data to remove aliasing artifacts. Phase unwrapping is applied on multidimensional regions of velocity data. The unwrapped velocity image is displayed. The displayed image may have high sensitivity to slow motion but may also avoid aliasing of fast |
| 7207942 |
Adaptive grating lobe suppression in ultrasound imaging |
April 24, 2007 |
| Adaptive grating lobe suppression is provided. Received ultrasound data is measured, compared or otherwise processed to determine the presence of grating lobe energy. A further process is then altered as a function of the level of grating lobe energy. In one embodiment, the adaptive grat |
| 7074186 |
Transmit based axial whitening |
July 11, 2006 |
| Transmit based axial whitening is provided. Ultrasonic waveforms to be transmitted are designed to provide for wideband imaging characteristics prior to detection. Rather than transmitting a waveform having a spectral magnitude as white or flat as possible, waveforms with adjusted spectr |
| 6858008 |
Automatic ultrasound transmit power setting method and system |
February 22, 2005 |
| Methods and systems for automatic adjustment of the transmit power are provided. Excess transmit power is determined as a function of the difference between a noise level and the lower end of the dynamic range of the system as configured. Based on the excess transmit power, the transmit |
| 6780152 |
Method and apparatus for ultrasound imaging of the heart |
August 24, 2004 |
| Images of the heart are formed by using multiple sets of ultrasound data. Each set of data is acquired and processed responsive to a different set of imaging parameters. The imaging parameter sets differ in at least one parameter, such as array position, temporal frequency response or tr |
| 6749570 |
Ultrasound method and apparatus for imaging breast |
June 15, 2004 |
| A method and apparatus for ultrasound breast imaging is described. Breast is positioned in between an ultrasound array and a plate with embedded point or line targets. The apparatus and reflections from the targets are used 1) to improve focusing by correcting for tissue delay and amplit |
| 6641536 |
Medical diagnostic ultrasound imaging methods for extended field of view |
November 4, 2003 |
| A medical diagnostic ultrasound imaging system aligns substantially co-planar two-dimensional images to form an extended field of view using improved compounding methods. Compounding with a finite impulse response is used for more versatile compositing. The compounding is adaptive, such |
| 6579238 |
Medical ultrasonic imaging system with adaptive multi-dimensional back-end mapping |
June 17, 2003 |
| A medical ultrasonic imaging system uses an adaptive multi-dimensional back-end mapping stage to eliminate loss of information in the back-end, minimize any back-end quantization noise, reduce or eliminate electronic noise, and map the local average of soft tissue to a target display val |
| 6551246 |
Method and apparatus for forming medical ultrasound images |
April 22, 2003 |
| A pulse echo beamforming system generates high spatial bandwidth ultrasound images using only a few transmit/receive events per frame. Each transmit/receive event consists of firing an unfocused or weakly focused wave and receiving and storing the echo on every receive channel. Each set |
| 6527720 |
Medical ultrasonic imaging method and system for spatial compounding |
March 4, 2003 |
| A medical imaging system provides increased detectability of targets such as membranes, tendons, muscle fibers and biopsy needles that have strong directional responses. This improved result is achieved by compounding multiple images generated by using only one or two transducer firings |
| 6517489 |
Method and apparatus for forming medical ultrasound images |
February 11, 2003 |
| A medical ultrasonic imaging method uses transmitted plane waves, or transmitted wavefronts that are substantially planar, to improve contrast agent imaging by generating peak pressures that are more uniform over depth. Depending on the type of contrast agent, the returned frequencies |
| 6432054 |
Medical ultrasonic imaging with adaptive synthesis and compounding |
August 13, 2002 |
| A medical diagnostic imaging system generates a compounded beam signal C by combining first and second beam signals B1, B2 subsequent to detection and a synthesized beam signal S by combining the first and second beam signals B1, B2 prior to detection. The compounded signal C and the syn |
| 6398733 |
Medical ultrasonic imaging system with adaptive multi-dimensional back-end mapping |
June 4, 2002 |
| A medical ultrasonic imaging system uses an adaptive multi-dimensional back-end mapping stage to eliminate loss of information in the back-end, minimize any back-end quantization noise, reduce or eliminate electronic noise, and map the local average of soft tissue to a target display val |
| 6364835 |
Medical diagnostic ultrasound imaging methods for extended field of view |
April 2, 2002 |
| A medical diagnostic ultrasound imaging system aligns substantially co-planar two-dimensional images to form an extended field of view using improved compounding methods. Compounding with a finite impulse response is used for more versatile compositing. The compounding is adaptive, such |
| 6352511 |
Medical diagnostic ultrasound system and method for post processing |
March 5, 2002 |
| Ultrasound data is generated by a receive beamformer. Ultrasound image processing is applied to the ultrasound data for presentation of an image. Various ones of the ultrasound image processing steps may be reversed. For example, persistence processing may be reversed in order to obtain |
| 6322505 |
Medical diagnostic ultrasound system and method for post processing |
November 27, 2001 |
| Ultrasound data is generated by a receive beamformer. Ultrasound image processing is applied to the ultrasound data for presentation of an image. Various ones of the ultrasound image processing steps may be reversed. For example, persistence processing may be reversed in order to obtain |
| 6309356 |
Method and apparatus for forming medical ultrasound images |
October 30, 2001 |
| A pulse echo beamforming system generates high spatial bandwidth ultrasound images using only a few transmit/receive events per frame. Each transmit/receive event consists of firing an unfocused or weakly focused wave and receiving and storing the echo on every receive channel. Each set |
| 6277073 |
Medical diagnostic ultrasound imaging method and system using simultaneously transmitted ultraso |
August 21, 2001 |
| A multifocus ultrasonic imaging system transmits two or more successive multifocus beams in order to increase the number of separate focal zones along a given scan line. The operating conditions for different transmit foci are controlled in a multifocus transmit event in order to optimiz |
| 6241674 |
Medical ultrasound diagnostic imaging method and system with nonlinear phase modulation pulse co |
June 5, 2001 |
| A medical ultrasonic diagnostic imaging method and apparatus uses a phased array transducer probe to transmit a fundamental coded ultrasonic pulse into a tissue. This pulse has a time-bandwidth product that is greater than 1 but less than 100. A receiver is coupled to the probe to receiv |
| 6110115 |
Medical diagnostic ultrasonic imaging system and method |
August 29, 2000 |
| An ultrasonic imaging system and method provide whitening using a two dimensional pre-detection filter followed by low pass filtering using a two dimensional post-detection filter to reduce speckle variance and enhance spatial resolution of the resulting image. |
| 6057632 |
Frequency and bandwidth controlled ultrasound transducer |
May 2, 2000 |
| A wideband ultrasound transducer having a plurality of transducer elements sequentially arranged in an azimuth direction. Each transducer element is spaced from adjacent transducer elements in the azimuth direction and each transducer element extends from a first end to a second end in a |
| 5919138 |
Ultrasound imaging system user interface |
July 6, 1999 |
| An ultrasound imaging system user interface is provided. The interface comprises an imaging-parameter-selection domain comprising a plurality of domain locations, each corresponding to a respective plurality of imaging parameter configurations that affect spatial resolution, temporal |
| 5902242 |
System and method for forming a combined ultrasonic image |
May 11, 1999 |
| An ultrasonic imaging system includes an ultrasonic transducer array having a thinner portion, an intermediate portion, and a thicker portion that extend along an azimuthal direction. This transducer array is used to acquire first and second images of an imaged region. The first and seco |
| 5873830 |
Ultrasound imaging system and method for improving resolution and operation |
February 23, 1999 |
| An ultrasound system and method are provided for improving resolution and operation. The system applies different imaging parameters within and outside a region of interest in an ultrasound image to improve spatial and/or temporal resolution inside a region of interest. The system also |
