CN115115731A - Software beam forming method and device, ultrasonic imaging equipment and storage medium - Google Patents
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Abstract
The application relates to a software beam forming method, a device, an ultrasonic imaging device and a storage medium, wherein the method comprises the following steps: acquiring an echo signal returned by a point to be imaged through an ultrasonic probe; determining the position information of an auxiliary imaging point of a point to be imaged in the axial direction of a received sound beam; aiming at the auxiliary imaging point, calculating based on an echo signal returned by the point to be imaged and the position information of the auxiliary imaging point to obtain an echo signal of the auxiliary imaging point; and obtaining imaging information of the point to be imaged according to the echo signal of the point to be imaged and the echo signal of the auxiliary imaging point. According to the method, the auxiliary imaging points are added, and the data volume of the echo signals after beam forming is improved, so that all energy in the ultrasonic emission pulse sampling volume is fully utilized, and the effect of improving the signal-to-noise ratio of the image is achieved.
Description
Technical Field
The present application relates to the field of medical image processing technology, and in particular, to a software beam method, an apparatus, an ultrasound imaging device, a storage medium, and a computer program product.
Background
The ultrasonic imaging technology has the characteristics of safety, real-time performance and the like, and is widely applied to clinical diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular diseases, abdominal viscera diseases, obstetrics and gynecology and the like. In the ultrasonic imaging process, after pulse sound waves are sent to target tissues through an ultrasonic probe, pulse echoes reflected by refraction, reflection and scattering of the target tissues can be received and converted into echo signals. Due to the scattering effect of the acoustic wave, echo signals need to be subjected to beamforming (also called beam forming), the echo signals returned by the target tissue through each channel are focused, the interference of side lobe signals in the non-information source direction is suppressed, and finally formed signals can be used for imaging.
Currently, the commonly used beam forming methods include a delay and sum (DAS) algorithm, a Minimum Variance (MV) beam forming algorithm, and the like, which can improve the contrast or image resolution after imaging, but the image signal-to-noise ratio is still not high enough.
Disclosure of Invention
In view of the above, it is necessary to provide a software beamforming method, an apparatus, an ultrasound imaging device, a computer readable storage medium and a computer program product for solving the above technical problems.
In a first aspect, the present application provides a software beamforming method. The method comprises the following steps:
acquiring an echo signal returned by a point to be imaged through an ultrasonic probe;
for the point to be imaged, determining the position information of an auxiliary imaging point of the point to be imaged in the axis direction of the received sound beam;
aiming at the auxiliary imaging point, calculating based on the echo signal returned by the point to be imaged and the position information of the auxiliary imaging point to obtain the echo signal of the auxiliary imaging point;
and obtaining the imaging information of the point to be imaged according to the echo signal of the point to be imaged and the echo signal of the auxiliary imaging point.
In one embodiment, the number of the auxiliary imaging points is multiple; the imaging information comprises pixel values; the obtaining of the imaging information of the point to be imaged according to the echo signal of the point to be imaged and the echo signal of the auxiliary imaging point includes:
counting the echo signal intensity of the point to be imaged and the echo synthesis signal intensity of a plurality of auxiliary imaging points to obtain a statistical value; the statistical value comprises a mean value or a median value;
and converting the statistical value into the pixel value of the point to be imaged.
In one embodiment, the secondary imaging points are distributed on two sides of the receiving sound beam axis direction, and the number of the secondary imaging points on the two sides of the receiving sound beam axis direction is the same.
In one embodiment, the imaging information further includes a velocity; the obtaining the imaging information of the point to be imaged according to the echo signal of the point to be imaged and the echo signal of the auxiliary imaging point comprises the following steps:
carrying out time domain transformation on echo signals of a plurality of auxiliary imaging points within a preset time period to obtain a synthesized signal;
and obtaining the speed of the point to be imaged according to the phase of the synthetic signal and the central frequency of the ultrasonic echo.
In one embodiment, the number of the auxiliary pixels is one; the imaging information comprises pixel values; the obtaining of the imaging information of the point to be imaged according to the echo signal of the point to be imaged and the echo signal of the auxiliary imaging point includes:
and converting the echo signal of the auxiliary imaging point into the pixel value of the point to be imaged.
In one embodiment, the acquiring, by an ultrasound probe, an echo signal returned from a point to be imaged includes:
acquiring a channel signal returned by the point to be imaged through the ultrasonic probe;
and obtaining the echo signal by sequentially carrying out analog/digital conversion, down-sampling and demodulation filtering on the channel signal.
In one embodiment, the method further comprises:
transmitting the echo signal into a processor using a remote direct data access protocol.
In one embodiment, the determining, for the point to be imaged, position information of its secondary imaging point in the direction of the receiving beam axis includes:
determining a spacing between the imaging points according to the ultrasonic velocity and a sampling rate of the analog/digital conversion;
and determining the position information of the auxiliary imaging point according to the included angle between the axis direction of the received sound beam and the vertical direction and the distance.
In a second aspect, the present application further provides a software beamforming apparatus. The device comprises:
the imaging point echo signal acquisition module is used for acquiring an echo signal returned by a point to be imaged through the ultrasonic probe;
the position information determining module is used for determining the position information of the auxiliary imaging point of the point to be imaged in the axis direction of the received sound beam;
the auxiliary imaging point echo signal acquisition module is used for calculating the auxiliary imaging point based on the echo signal returned by the point to be imaged and the position information of the auxiliary imaging point to obtain the echo signal of the auxiliary imaging point;
and the imaging information calculation module is used for obtaining the imaging information of the point to be imaged according to the echo signal of the point to be imaged and the echo signal of the auxiliary imaging point.
In a third aspect, the present application further provides an ultrasound imaging apparatus, including an ultrasound probe and an ultrasound host, where the ultrasound host includes a memory and a processor, where the memory stores a computer program, and the processor implements the steps in the software beam forming method embodiment when executing the computer program.
In a fourth aspect, the present application further provides a computer-readable storage medium. The computer readable storage medium has stored thereon a computer program which, when executed by a processor, implements the steps in the software beamforming method embodiments described above.
In a fifth aspect, the present application further provides a computer program product. The computer program product comprises a computer program which, when executed by a processor, performs the steps of the above-described software beamforming method embodiment.
According to the software beam forming method, the device, the ultrasonic imaging equipment, the storage medium and the computer program product, the echo signal returned by the point to be imaged is obtained through the ultrasonic probe; determining the position information of an auxiliary imaging point of a point to be imaged in the axial direction of a received sound beam; aiming at the auxiliary imaging point, calculating based on an echo signal returned by the point to be imaged and the position information of the auxiliary imaging point to obtain an echo signal of the auxiliary imaging point; and obtaining imaging information of the point to be imaged according to the echo signal of the point to be imaged and the echo signal of the auxiliary imaging point. This application promotes the data volume of echo signal after the beam forming through increasing the auxiliary imaging point to make full use of ultrasonic emission pulse samples all energy in the volume, reaches the effect that promotes the image SNR.
Drawings
FIG. 1 is a diagram of an embodiment of a software beamforming method;
FIG. 2 is a flow diagram illustrating a software beamforming method according to one embodiment;
FIG. 3(a) is a diagram illustrating a point to be imaged in a software beamforming method according to an embodiment;
FIG. 3(b) is a schematic diagram illustrating interpolation of auxiliary imaging points in the software beamforming method according to an embodiment;
FIG. 4 is a flow chart illustrating a calculation process of a velocity of a point to be imaged in the software beamforming method according to an embodiment;
FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram illustrating a demodulation process of an echo signal according to an embodiment;
FIG. 6 is a diagram showing an internal structure of an ultrasonic imaging apparatus in one embodiment;
FIG. 7 is a view showing an internal structure of an ultrasonic imaging apparatus in another embodiment;
fig. 8 is a block diagram of a software beamforming apparatus according to an embodiment.
Detailed Description
In order to make the objects, technical solutions and advantages of the present application more apparent, the present application is described in further detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings and embodiments. It should be understood that the specific embodiments described herein are merely illustrative of the present application and are not intended to limit the present application.
The software beam forming method provided by the embodiment of the application can be applied to the application environment shown in fig. 1. Wherein, the ultrasound probe 101 communicates with the ultrasound host 102 through a communication network. The ultrasound host includes a data storage system that can store data that the ultrasound host 102 needs to process.
In one embodiment, as shown in fig. 2, a software beamforming method is provided, which is described by taking the method as an example applied to the ultrasound mainframe 102 in fig. 1, and includes the following steps:
step S201, acquiring an echo signal returned by a point to be imaged through an ultrasonic probe;
wherein, the ultrasonic probe is a device for transmitting and receiving ultrasonic waves in the ultrasonic detection process; ultrasonic waves are sound waves with a frequency of more than 20kHz, which are essentially mechanical waves, and are used in medical ultrasound for imaging human tissues due to their characteristics of short wavelength, high frequency, good directivity, high energy, and the like.
Generally, ultrasound imaging is constructed from scan lines based on the pulse-echo principle. Firstly, the ultrasonic transducer converts voltage into sound pressure by utilizing an inverse piezoelectric effect to generate ultrasonic beams to be emitted into human tissues; the ultrasound then propagates within the body, interacting with tiny scatterers in the tissue, producing a large number of reflected, refracted, and scattered echoes. The echoes are transmitted back to the surface of the transducer, the transducer converts the sound wave signals into electric signals by utilizing the piezoelectric effect, and then the electric signals are sampled by an experimental acquisition system to obtain original channel signals. And forming a beam for the original channel signal to obtain ultrasonic radio frequency data. And carrying out logarithmic compression and display processing on the ultrasonic radio frequency data to obtain an ultrasonic image of the human tissue.
Specifically, in step S201, after the ultrasound probe transmits the ultrasound, the echo signal returned from the point to be imaged, that is, each reflection point on the target tissue, is received, and these points need to be converted into corresponding pixel values to be displayed on the display device, and thus are referred to as the point to be imaged.
Step S202, aiming at the point to be imaged, determining the position information of the auxiliary imaging point of the point to be imaged in the receiving sound beam axis direction.
As shown in fig. 3(a), fig. 3(a) shows a schematic diagram of a point to be imaged in ultrasonic beam synthesis on a blood vessel, an ultrasonic probe includes a piezoelectric crystal, the piezoelectric crystal includes a plurality of array elements arranged in a matrix, the array elements are used for transmitting or receiving signals, the direction of an acoustic axis of the transmitted or received ultrasonic beam, i.e., the direction of an axis of the received acoustic beam, is controlled by controlling the transmission mode of the array elements, a dash-dot line in fig. 3(a) is the direction of the axis of the received acoustic beam, and in an OXY-y plane coordinate system, it is assumed that there is a point to be imaged X i ＝(x i ,y i )，(x i ,y i ) As its position coordinates; determining a plurality of auxiliary imaging points in the receiving sound beam axis direction, as shown in fig. 3(b), the position information of each auxiliary imaging point is X 0 ＝(x 0 ,y 0 )，X 1 ＝(x 1 ,y 1 )…，X i-1 ＝(x i-1 ,y i-1 ) And X i+1 ＝(x i+1 ,y i+1 )，X i+2 ＝(x i+2 ,y i+2 )…X N-1 ＝(x N-1 ,y N-1 ) If the imaging point to be imaged comprises N imaging points in total, X is arranged in sequence 0 ＝(x 0 ,y 0 )，X 1 ＝(x 1 ,y 1 )…，X i ＝(x i ,y i )，…X N-1 ＝(x N-1 ,y N-1 ) The point to be imaged and the auxiliary imaging point are collectively called as imaging points, and the distance between the imaging points is delta d.
Furthermore, the auxiliary imaging points are distributed on two sides of the point to be imaged, and the number of the auxiliary imaging points on the two sides of the point to be imaged is the same.
Step S203, aiming at the auxiliary imaging point, calculating based on the echo signal returned by the point to be imaged and the position information of the auxiliary imaging point to obtain the echo signal of the auxiliary imaging point;
specifically, according to the position information X of the auxiliary imaging point 0 、X 1 …X i-1 And X i+1 ，X i+2 …X N-1 Calculating to obtain echo signals of each auxiliary imaging point, and determining signal data Y on each imaging point (the imaging point comprises the auxiliary imaging point and the point to be imaged) 0 、Y 1 ……Y i ……Y N-1 The signal data is represented by complex numbers including amplitude and phase, in which case Y 0 、Y 1 ……Y i ……Y N-1 Also known as baseband signals or analytic signals.
Specifically, after the positions of the point to be imaged and the corresponding auxiliary imaging point are determined, for each auxiliary imaging point, based on the echo signal of the point to be imaged received by each array element on the ultrasound probe and the distance between the auxiliary imaging point and each array element, the echo signal on the auxiliary imaging point is calculated by a beam synthesis method, for example, the echo signal of the auxiliary imaging point is obtained by using a traditional delay and sum (DAS) method or a mapping matrix method.
For example, for any secondary imaging point X i The echo signal Y can be calculated using a delay-and-superposition method (DAS) i ：
Wherein, Y i An echo signal representing the ith secondary imaging point; s n For the ultrasonic echo data obtained on the nth channel (i.e. the nth array element), w n For beam-forming the aperture parameter, r n For auxiliary imaging points X i The sum of the reciprocating distance between the array element and the nth array element, c is the propagation speed of the ultrasonic wave in the human body,
phase compensation parameters for beam-forming of baseband signals or analytic signals.Because the beam synthesis processing of each auxiliary imaging point is independent of each other, the beam synthesis calculation can be simultaneously carried out on all the imaging points by using a parallel calculation method.
Step S204, obtaining imaging information of the point to be imaged according to the echo signal of the point to be imaged and the echo signal of the auxiliary imaging point;
specifically, after the echo signal on the auxiliary imaging point is obtained by using the beam forming method, the pixel value of the corresponding point to be imaged can be obtained by processing, and used for final display, for example, for B-mode imaging, the pixel value can be directly obtained from the echo signal set { Y } 0 、Y 1 ……Y i ……Y N And selecting a result for imaging the point to be imaged, namely selecting a result and converting the result into a pixel value, and converting the statistical value into the pixel value of the point to be imaged after solving the statistical value aiming at the echo signal set.
According to the embodiment, the auxiliary imaging points are added, and the data volume of the echo signals after beam forming is improved, so that all energy in the ultrasonic emission pulse sampling volume is fully utilized, and the effect of improving the signal-to-noise ratio of the image is achieved.
In an embodiment, the number of the auxiliary imaging points is plural; the imaging information includes pixel values; the step S204 includes:
counting the echo signal intensity of the point to be imaged and the echo signal intensities of the auxiliary imaging points to obtain a statistical value; statistical values include mean or median values; and converting the statistical value into a pixel value of a point to be imaged.
In particular, for B-mode ultrasound imaging, in addition to the above set of direct slave echo signals { Y } 0 、Y 1 ……Y i ……Y N Selecting one result for generating the imaging result of the point to be imaged, and also can perform imaging on the set { Y } 0 、Y 1 ……Y i ……Y N And (4) performing statistical processing, such as solving a mean value, a median value and the like, and converting a statistical result into a pixel value serving as the pixel value of the point to be imaged.
According to the embodiment, the plurality of auxiliary pixel points are obtained by using a demodulation signal interpolation method, and are subjected to statistical processing, so that the pixel value of the point to be imaged is finally obtained, the pixel value of the point to be imaged obtained through calculation is more accurate, and the signal-to-noise ratio of the image is further improved.
In an embodiment, as shown in fig. 4, fig. 4 shows a step of calculating a velocity in imaging information, where the imaging information further includes the velocity, and the step S204 includes:
step S401, performing time domain transformation on echo signals of multiple auxiliary imaging points within a preset time period to obtain a synthesized signal.
Specifically, for color blood flow mode or elastography, not only the pixel value of the point to be imaged needs to be calculated, but also the velocity or displacement of the point to be imaged needs to be calculated, in order to improve the signal-to-noise ratio of weak signal detection, the velocity v or displacement of the point to be imaged is finally determined by the whole set, and the calculation process is as follows:
firstly, time domain transformation is carried out on echo signals of a plurality of auxiliary imaging points within a preset time period to obtain a synthetic signal R (1):
the composite signal R (1) may utilize the set of signals { Y } 0 、Y 1 ……Y i ……Y N Is calculated by:
wherein, Y i (t) represents the echo signal obtained at the ith secondary imaging point after the tth transmission, (-) represents the complex conjugate,
representing the complex conjugate of the echo signal obtained at the ith satellite imaging point after the t +1 th transmission, i.e. the time-domain transformation in digital signal processing, i.e. by finding Y i (t) the cross-correlation function ultimately determines the composite signal R (1); n is the total number of imaging points, N is selected in relation to the ultrasound transmit pulse length, N T The number of repeated transmissions of the ultrasound pulse during blood flow or elastography.
And step S402, obtaining the speed of the point to be imaged according to the phase of the synthetic signal and the central frequency of the ultrasonic echo.
Specifically, the velocity v of the point to be imaged is obtained according to the phase of the synthesized signal and the center frequency of the ultrasonic echo, and the calculation formula is as follows:
wherein v is the speed of the point to be imaged; c is the propagation speed of the ultrasonic wave in the human body; f. of prf For the transmission repetition frequency of the ultrasonic pulses, f 0 For the center frequency of the ultrasonic echo, the composite signal R (1) is a complex number, and Imag (R (1)) is the imaginary part of R (1), namely the phase of the composite signal; real (R (1)) is the Real part of R (1) and is the amplitude of the composite signal.
In the embodiment, the speed of the point to be imaged is obtained by performing digital signal processing on the echo signal of the auxiliary imaging point, so that the interpolation method can be applied to color blood flow mode imaging or elastography.
In an embodiment, the number of the auxiliary pixels is one; the imaging information includes pixel values, and the step S204 includes: and converting the echo signal of the auxiliary imaging point into a pixel value of the point to be imaged.
Specifically, after the echo signal received by the ultrasonic probe is demodulated and down-sampled and transmitted into the memory of the computer, the computer can start the software type beam forming processing. For any point to be imaged (point to be imaged is also called sampling point) X in the imaging area i ＝(x i ,y i ) The software may define the value of the auxiliary imaging point N associated with it to optimize signal processing overhead. For example, for B-mode ultrasound imaging, the number N of auxiliary imaging points may be 1, that is, the number of auxiliary imaging points is 1, and then the auxiliary imaging points may be directly used for imaging the point to be imaged. And for color flow ultrasound imaging, N-15 may be taken.
In the above embodiment, in the B-mode ultrasonic imaging, only one auxiliary imaging point is selected, and the auxiliary imaging point is directly used as the target imaging result of the point to be imaged, so that the method can be applied to the B-mode imaging.
In an embodiment, the step S201 of acquiring, by the ultrasound probe, an echo signal returned by the point to be imaged includes: acquiring a channel signal returned by a point to be imaged through an ultrasonic probe; and obtaining an echo signal by sequentially carrying out analog/digital conversion, down-sampling and demodulation filtering on the channel signal.
Specifically, the ultrasonic imaging device works in a pulse-echo mode, and the ultrasonic circuit emits ultrasonic pulses with certain central frequency to detect human tissues under the control of a computer; the ultrasonic echo reflected/scattered by human tissue is passed through the ultrasonic probe to obtain channel signal (or named original signal) returned from point to be imaged, and is converted into digital signal by means of amplification and analog/digital conversion, in which the sampling rate f of analog/digital conversion s Typically 20 MHz-80 MHz, due to the bandpass characteristics of the original signal (e.g., bandwidth of the center frequency f of the ultrasonic pulse generation) 0 60% -100%) of the original signal, the effective frequency range does not cover the whole sampling frequency range, so the original signal needs to be demodulated, the demodulation method can be orthogonal demodulation, Hilbert transform demodulation or complex frequency domain filter demodulation, the schematic diagram of the demodulation process is shown in FIG. 5, the methods can reduce the bandwidth of the original signal to half of the original bandwidth, and thus the frequency aliasing phenomenon does not occur after the original signal is subjected to down-sampling processing. The down-sampling process can reduce the sampling rate of the data to 10 MHz-40 MHz.
Furthermore, after the echo signal obtained after demodulation and down-sampling processing is transmitted into the memory of the computer, the computer can start the software type beam forming processing. For an imaging point X in the imaging area i ＝(x i ,y i ) The software may define the value of the auxiliary imaging point N associated with it to optimize signal processing overhead. For example, for B-mode ultrasound imaging, the number N of auxiliary imaging points is 1; for color flow ultrasonic imaging, the number of auxiliary imaging points N is 15. After the number N of the auxiliary imaging points is determined, the auxiliary imaging points can be arranged in the area adjacent to the point to be imaged, and the interval delta d between the auxiliary imaging pointsCan be determined as 2 xc/f s Wherein f is s Is the sampling rate of the analog/digital conversion, and c is the propagation speed of the ultrasonic waves in the human body. For any auxiliary imaging point X i Its echo signal can be calculated using delay-and-superposition (DAS):
wherein, Y i An echo signal representing the ith secondary imaging point; s n For ultrasonic echo data obtained on the n-th channel, w n For beam-forming the aperture parameter, r n As auxiliary imaging points Y i The sum of the reciprocating distance between the array element and the nth channel array element, c is the propagation speed of the ultrasonic wave in the human body,
phase compensation parameters for beam-forming of baseband signals or analytic signals. Because the beam synthesis processing between the auxiliary imaging points is independent of each other, the beam synthesis calculation can be simultaneously carried out on all the imaging points by using a parallel calculation method.
According to the embodiment, the echo signal is obtained by performing analog/digital conversion, down-sampling and demodulation filtering on the original channel signal, so that the imaging information of the point to be imaged can be calculated subsequently.
In an embodiment, the step S202 includes: determining a distance between imaging points according to the ultrasonic velocity and the sampling rate of the analog/digital conversion; and determining the position information of the auxiliary imaging point according to the included angle and the distance between the axis direction of the received sound beam and the vertical direction and the position information of the point to be imaged.
Specifically, the inter-auxiliary-pixel interval Δ d may be determined to be 2 × c/f s Wherein f is s Is the sampling rate of analog/digital conversion, and c is the propagation speed of ultrasonic waves in a human body; in fig. 3(b), the position information of the auxiliary imaging point can be determined through mathematical operation according to the included angle α between the axis direction of the received sound beam and the vertical direction, the distance Δ d, and the position information X of the point to be imaged.
In the above embodiment, the position information of the auxiliary imaging point is determined, so as to make data bedding for subsequently calculating the echo signal of the auxiliary imaging point.
In one embodiment, as shown in fig. 6, fig. 6 shows an internal structure diagram of an apparatus of an ultrasound imaging apparatus, in a medical ultrasound imaging apparatus, a sampling frequency range of an ultrasound signal is generally 20MHz to 80MHz, and for a 128-channel receiving apparatus, a data transmission bandwidth required by the ultrasound signal can reach 4.17GByte/s to 16.69GByte/s considering that a sampling resolution of the signal is 14 bit. This data bandwidth requirement often exceeds the transmission capabilities of the computer interface. (the peak data transmission bandwidth of a 3.0 bus of a 16-channel PCI-Express supported by a conventional computer can be 15.8 GBytes/s.) in order to completely transmit an ultrasonic signal to a computer for processing, data is generally buffered (cached) in an ultrasonic electronic circuit, so that a significant delay exists between signal acquisition and software processing.
In the apparatus composition principle of the ultrasound imaging apparatus proposed in this embodiment, as shown in fig. 6, in order to reduce the requirement for the data transmission bandwidth, a demodulation/down-sampling circuit is included in the hardware. After echo data sampling (A/D), a demodulation/down-sampling circuit converts an echo signal into a baseband or analytic signal with relatively small bandwidth, so that the data volume of ultrasonic data can be reduced to below 50% in real time, and the requirement on data transmission bandwidth is reduced to 2.09 GByte/s-8.34 GByte/s. The ultrasonic echo data after demodulation/down-sampling processing can be directly transmitted in real time through a direct interface of a circuit and a computer without buffering of an electronic circuit, and the process is shown in fig. 6, namely, the ultrasonic echo data after demodulation/down-sampling processing in the step (1) is transmitted to a computer memory in an ultrasonic host through a data path (namely, an ultrasonic circuit); the ultrasonic echo data in the memory in the step (2) can be copied into a GPU memory for calculation processing; or the ultrasonic echo data in the memory in the step (3) can be directly processed by the CPU.
According to the embodiment, a large number of echo signals are converted into the baseband or analytic signals with relatively small bandwidth by adopting the demodulation/down-sampling circuit, so that the data volume of the echo signals is reduced, the echo signals can rapidly enter the memory of a computer without buffering of an electronic circuit for further processing by a CPU or a GPU, the data processing speed of the ultrasonic imaging equipment is increased, and the imaging quality is improved.
Further, as a variation of the above embodiment, the method further includes: transmitting the echo signal to a processor using a Remote direct data access protocol, as shown in fig. 7, the present application also provides using RDMA (Remote direct memory access) technology to further reduce latency. In fig. 7, the ultrasonic echo data demodulated/down-sampled in step (1) is directly transmitted to the GPU in the ultrasonic host via the data path (i.e., the ultrasonic circuit) for processing, without being buffered in the memory of the computer, and the data processed by the GPU in step (2) can be transmitted to the memory of the computer.
In the embodiment, the RDMA technology is used, so that the ultrasonic echo data directly enters the GPU for processing without being buffered by a computer memory, and the signal processing speed of the ultrasonic imaging equipment is further increased, thereby increasing the imaging speed.
It should be understood that, although the steps in the flowcharts related to the embodiments as described above are sequentially displayed as indicated by arrows, the steps are not necessarily performed sequentially as indicated by the arrows. The steps are not performed in the exact order shown and described, and may be performed in other orders, unless explicitly stated otherwise. Moreover, at least a part of the steps in the flowcharts related to the embodiments described above may include multiple steps or multiple stages, which are not necessarily performed at the same time, but may be performed at different times, and the execution order of the steps or stages is not necessarily sequential, but may be rotated or alternated with other steps or at least a part of the steps or stages in other steps.
Based on the same inventive concept, the embodiment of the present application further provides a software beamforming device for implementing the above-mentioned software beamforming method. The implementation scheme for solving the problem provided by the apparatus is similar to the implementation scheme described in the above method, so specific limitations in one or more embodiments of the software beamforming apparatus provided below may refer to the limitations in the above software beamforming method, and details are not described herein again.
In one embodiment, as shown in fig. 8, there is provided a software beamforming apparatus 800 comprising: an echo signal acquiring module 801 of a point to be imaged, a position information determining module 802, an auxiliary imaging point echo signal acquiring module 803, and an imaging information calculating module 804, wherein:
an echo signal acquiring module 801 of a point to be imaged, configured to acquire an echo signal returned by the point to be imaged through an ultrasonic probe;
a position information determining module 802, configured to determine, for the point to be imaged, position information of a secondary imaging point of the point in the direction of the axis of the received sound beam;
an auxiliary imaging point echo signal acquiring module 803, configured to calculate, for the auxiliary imaging point, based on the echo signal returned by the point to be imaged and the position information of the auxiliary imaging point, to obtain an echo signal of the auxiliary imaging point;
and an imaging information calculation module 804, configured to obtain imaging information of the point to be imaged according to the echo signal of the point to be imaged and the echo signal of the auxiliary imaging point.
In one embodiment, the number of the auxiliary imaging points is multiple; the imaging information comprises pixel values; the imaging information calculation module 804 is further configured to: counting the echo signal intensity of the point to be imaged and the echo signal intensities of the auxiliary imaging points to obtain a statistical value; the statistical value comprises a mean value or a median value; and converting the statistical value into the pixel value of the point to be imaged.
In an embodiment, the auxiliary imaging points are distributed on two sides of the point to be imaged, and the number of the auxiliary imaging points on the two sides of the point to be imaged is the same.
In an embodiment, the imaging information further comprises a velocity; the imaging information calculation module 804 is further configured to: carrying out time domain transformation on echo signals of a plurality of auxiliary imaging points within a preset time period to obtain a synthesized signal; and obtaining the speed of the point to be imaged according to the phase of the synthetic signal and the central frequency of the ultrasonic echo.
In an embodiment, the number of the auxiliary pixels is one; the imaging information comprises pixel values; the imaging information calculation module 804 is further configured to: and converting the echo signal of the auxiliary imaging point into the pixel value of the point to be imaged.
In an embodiment, the to-be-imaged point echo signal acquiring module 801 is further configured to: acquiring a channel signal returned by the point to be imaged through the ultrasonic probe; and obtaining the echo signal by sequentially carrying out analog/digital conversion, down-sampling and demodulation filtering on the channel signal.
In one embodiment, the software beamforming apparatus 800 further comprises a remote direct data access unit for transmitting the echo signal to the processor by using a remote direct data access protocol.
In an embodiment, the location information determining module 802 is further configured to: determining a spacing between the imaging points according to the ultrasonic velocity and a sampling rate of the analog/digital conversion; and determining the position information of the auxiliary imaging point according to the included angle between the axis direction of the received sound beam and the vertical direction, the distance and the position information of the point to be imaged.
The various modules in the software beamforming apparatus described above may be implemented in whole or in part by software, hardware, and combinations thereof. The modules can be embedded in a hardware form or independent from a processor in the computer device, and can also be stored in a memory in the computer device in a software form, so that the processor can call and execute operations corresponding to the modules.
Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the architecture shown in fig. 8 is merely a block diagram of some of the structures associated with the disclosed aspects and is not intended to limit the computing devices to which the disclosed aspects apply, as particular computing devices may include more or less components than those shown, or may combine certain components, or have a different arrangement of components.
In one embodiment, an ultrasound imaging apparatus is provided, which includes an ultrasound probe and an ultrasound host, the ultrasound host includes a memory and a processor, the memory stores a computer program, and the processor implements the steps of the software beam forming method embodiments described above when executing the computer program.
In one embodiment, a computer readable storage medium is provided, having stored thereon a computer program, which when executed by a processor, performs the steps in the above-described software beamforming method embodiments.
In an embodiment, a computer program product is provided, comprising a computer program which, when executed by a processor, performs the steps of the software beamforming method embodiment described above.
It should be noted that, the user information (including but not limited to user device information, user personal information, etc.) and data (including but not limited to data for analysis, stored data, presented data, etc.) referred to in the present application are information and data authorized by the user or sufficiently authorized by each party.
It will be understood by those skilled in the art that all or part of the processes of the methods of the embodiments described above can be implemented by hardware instructions of a computer program, which can be stored in a non-volatile computer-readable storage medium, and when executed, can include the processes of the embodiments of the methods described above. Any reference to memory, database, or other medium used in the embodiments provided herein may include at least one of non-volatile and volatile memory. The nonvolatile Memory may include Read-Only Memory (ROM), magnetic tape, floppy disk, flash Memory, optical Memory, high-density embedded nonvolatile Memory, resistive Random Access Memory (ReRAM), Magnetic Random Access Memory (MRAM), Ferroelectric Random Access Memory (FRAM), Phase Change Memory (PCM), graphene Memory, and the like. Volatile Memory can include Random Access Memory (RAM), external cache Memory, and the like. By way of illustration and not limitation, RAM can take many forms, such as Static Random Access Memory (SRAM) or Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM), among others. The databases referred to in various embodiments provided herein may include at least one of relational and non-relational databases. The non-relational database may include, but is not limited to, a block chain based distributed database, and the like. The processors referred to in the embodiments provided herein may be general purpose processors, central processing units, graphics processors, digital signal processors, programmable logic devices, quantum computing based data processing logic devices, etc., without limitation.
The technical features of the above embodiments can be arbitrarily combined, and for the sake of brevity, all possible combinations of the technical features in the above embodiments are not described, but should be considered as the scope of the present specification as long as there is no contradiction between the combinations of the technical features.
The above-mentioned embodiments only express several embodiments of the present application, and the description thereof is more specific and detailed, but not construed as limiting the scope of the present application. It should be noted that, for a person skilled in the art, several variations and modifications can be made without departing from the concept of the present application, which falls within the scope of protection of the present application. Therefore, the protection scope of the present application shall be subject to the appended claims.
Claims (12)
1. A method for software beamforming, the method comprising:
acquiring an echo signal returned by a point to be imaged through an ultrasonic probe;
for the point to be imaged, determining the position information of an auxiliary imaging point of the point to be imaged in the receiving sound beam axis direction;
aiming at the auxiliary imaging point, calculating based on the echo signal returned by the point to be imaged and the position information of the auxiliary imaging point to obtain the echo signal of the auxiliary imaging point;
and obtaining the imaging information of the point to be imaged according to the echo signal of the point to be imaged and the echo signal of the auxiliary imaging point.
2. The method of claim 1, wherein the number of secondary imaging points is plural; the imaging information comprises pixel values; the obtaining the imaging information of the point to be imaged according to the echo signal of the point to be imaged and the echo signal of the auxiliary imaging point comprises the following steps:
performing statistical processing on the echo signal intensity of the point to be imaged and the echo signal intensities of the auxiliary imaging points to obtain a statistical value; the statistical value comprises a mean value or a median value;
and converting the statistical value into the pixel value of the point to be imaged.
3. The method of claim 2, wherein the auxiliary imaging points are distributed on two sides of the point to be imaged, and the number of the auxiliary imaging points on the two sides of the point to be imaged is the same.
4. The method of claim 2, wherein the imaging information further comprises a velocity; the obtaining of the imaging information of the point to be imaged according to the echo signal of the point to be imaged and the echo signal of the auxiliary imaging point includes:
carrying out time domain transformation on echo signals of a plurality of auxiliary imaging points within a preset time period to obtain a synthesized signal;
and obtaining the speed of the point to be imaged according to the phase of the synthetic signal and the central frequency of the ultrasonic echo.
5. The method of claim 1, wherein the number of auxiliary pixels is one; the imaging information comprises pixel values; the obtaining the imaging information of the point to be imaged according to the echo signal of the point to be imaged and the echo signal of the auxiliary imaging point comprises the following steps:
and converting the echo signal of the auxiliary imaging point into the pixel value of the point to be imaged.
6. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 5, wherein the acquiring echo signals returned from the point to be imaged by the ultrasonic probe comprises:
acquiring a channel signal returned by the point to be imaged through the ultrasonic probe;
and obtaining the echo signal by sequentially carrying out analog/digital conversion, down-sampling and demodulation filtering on the channel signal.
7. The method of claim 6, further comprising:
the echo signal is transmitted into a processor using a remote direct data access protocol.
8. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 5, wherein the determining, for the point to be imaged, the position information of its auxiliary imaging point in the direction of the receive beam axis comprises:
determining a spacing between the imaging points according to the ultrasonic velocity and a sampling rate of the analog/digital conversion;
and determining the position information of the auxiliary imaging point according to the included angle between the axis direction of the received sound beam and the vertical direction, the distance and the position information of the point to be imaged.
9. A software beamforming apparatus, the apparatus comprising:
the imaging point echo signal acquisition module is used for acquiring an echo signal returned by the imaging point through the ultrasonic probe;
the position information determining module is used for determining the position information of the auxiliary imaging point of the point to be imaged in the axis direction of the received sound beam;
the auxiliary imaging point echo signal acquisition module is used for calculating the auxiliary imaging point based on the echo signal returned by the point to be imaged and the position information of the auxiliary imaging point to obtain the echo signal of the auxiliary imaging point;
and the imaging information calculation module is used for obtaining the imaging information of the point to be imaged according to the echo signal of the point to be imaged and the echo signal of the auxiliary imaging point.
10. An ultrasound imaging apparatus comprising an ultrasound probe and an ultrasound host comprising a memory and a processor, the memory storing a computer program, characterized in that the processor implements the steps of the method of any of claims 1 to 8 when executing the computer program.
11. A computer-readable storage medium, on which a computer program is stored which, when being executed by a processor, carries out the steps of the method according to any one of claims 1 to 8.
12. A computer program product comprising a computer program, characterized in that the computer program realizes the steps of the method of any one of claims 1 to 8 when executed by a processor.
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