GB2198906A - Converting and displaying data from vector scanning - Google Patents

Abstract

A system for coverting A-scan signals in r, theta co-ordinates into display data for x,y co-ordinate display locations, in which, for each radial A-scan signal, signal values for which the r co-ordinate is greater than a predetermined value contribute to the display data and values for which the r co-ordinate is less do not, and the predetermined values of r are different for different A-scans. Values are stored in 16 for a number of complete B-scans, so as to provide a simulated after-glow trace. <IMAGE>

Description

DISPLAYS FOR INFORMATION OBTAINED BY VECTOR SCANNING This invention relates to displays for information obtained by vector scanning, such as radar and sonar displays. In discussing the invention only radar will be specifically referred to but in general it will be appreciated that the invention can be applied wherever there is a need to convert received vector scan signals, which are in r,Q co-ordinates, into data which is available in x, y co-ordinates so that a display may be formed on a display device which is operated in an x,y format, such as a raster display cathode ray tube.

It is standard practice to transmit radar pulses from, and receive their echoes at, an antenna which rotates typically at approximately one rotation per se^cn9. DuelrO on rotation, in the regIon of X,CO pulses may be transmitted at equal intervals and for each pulse a plurality of echoes may be received depending upon what objects are in the path of the transmitted pulse. The set of echoes returned from a single transmitted pulse are converted into an analog electrical signal which for the purposes of this specifiction will be called an A-scan a is well known as such.A complete set of A-scans corresponding to one complete rotation of the antenna (i.e. typically about 4,000 A-scans) are known and will be referred to as a B-scan.

The signals of a B-scan are in an r, 6 co-ordinate system which has the antenna as its origin. For the purpose of displaying the radar picture it has been standard practice to use a cathode ray tube (CRT) which is operated in a corresponding r, # co-ordinate format.

For each A-scan the CRT beam starts at the screen centre and moves radially to its periphery, being modulated by the analog A-scan signal as it does so.

Each radial sweep is angularly displaced a little relative to the preceding one by an amount equal to the angular displacement of the antenna between successive A-scans, this being achieved in known manner b pr~7id- ing the display with a signal derived from or related to the system which rotates the antenna, this signal whatever its form being in effect 2 signal indicating current value o the # co-ordinate.The CRT screen is provided wth a phosphcr which has a degree of persistence so that a complete picture resulting from all the A-scan cc..'ainei is built up on the screen and continually refreshed bv the rotating bean.

The r co-ordinate of the display is the radial distance of a particular point on the screen from the beam sweep origin and it corresponds, but of course on a very small scale, to the r co-ordinate of a point within the view of the antenna and along a corresponding Q co-ordinate to that of the particular point on the screen. The current position of the beam on the CRT screen in the r direction is determined in known manner by timing circuitry which causes the beam to sweep outwardly from the screen centre at a predetermined speed starting from the origin at the moment when a radar pulse is transmitted.An echo pulse from an object or target will be received after a time interval proportionate to its distance from the antenna and so it will be displayed at a proportionate distance from the origin on the face of the CRT, due to the constant speed of the CRT beam sweep. In that context, the r co-ordInate sIgnal is a ramp signal starting from zero at the moment a radar pulse is transmitted but it will be evident that in principle any signal indicative of time elapsed since transmission of a radar pulse represents the current r co-ordinate value.

There are benefits to be had by displaying the picture on a -raster display CRT in which the beam makes successive horizontal sweeps across the screen start ing from the top and finishing at the bottom, typically 625 times to fill the screen, in the manner of the normal British television standard.

This, whilst in principle relatively simple, in practice involves very considerable problems if the cost of the required circuitry is to be kept low. The present invention is concerned with achieving such a display format at low cost so that it can be made available to, for example, the owners of small. boats for whom it is not practical to purchase expensive equipment.

Consider the information that has to be displayed in two horizontal raster lines, one of which lies just a little above the centre point of the screen and the other of which lies just a little below that point.

Referring to r,8 co-ordinates, it is convenient to suppose that the origin for 8 i.e. the line repro-sentin = 0, ) is a line running from the centre point of the screen r. r zontally leftwards, i.e. between the two raster lines just referred to. In that situation, the left-hand portion of the upper raster line must contain information derived from the first, or in any event a very early, radial A-scan whereas the lower raster line will contain in its left-hand portion information derived from the last, or in any event a very late, Ascan.The separation in time between those two A-scans will be of the order of 1 second whereas of course the two raster lines must both be displayed within a very small fraction of a second in order to achieve continuity of the picture. Consequently, it is necessary to store information derived from a large number of Ascans in order to have available all the information needed to form the picture from horizontal raster lines. It is appropriate to notionally divide the screen up into an array of rows and columns of picture elements, referred to as pixels. A respective electronic storage element, such as one specific storage location in a random access memory (RAM) should then be available to store a signal indicative of desired image brightness in each particular pixel. The more pixels there are, the more storage is required, and hence the greater s the cost incurred in providing it and so it is desirabie to make the pixel size as large as possible consistent with acceptable image definition to keep the cost of the memory or storage dovTn. A display having 512 x 256 pixels is in all probability acceptable.

To illustrate a problem which arises from the significant area of the pixels, it is convenient now to refer to Figure 2 of the accompanying drawings.

The problem arises in principle irrespective of storage requirements and is a consequence of the display being in effect a matrix display, having rows and columns of pixels of finite size, whether these be defined by the structure of a display device itself or by its manner of operation e.g. a raster scan CRT driven from a memory with discrete data value locations.

Figure 2 shows a group of 4 x 4 pixels located in the central region of the screen, the exact centre of the screen being located at O in the bottom right - hard corner. The screen periphery will lie many tens of pixels to the left of the figure, and many tens of pixels beyond the top of the figure, and of course the complete screen will contain four quadrants of plxe's.

However, the problem can be explained with reference to the small number shown. The radial lines labelled Al to A9 are the innermost portions of the first nine Ascans starting from O = O. They are not of course displayed cn the screen in the manner illustrated, but they are shown superimposed on the screen pixels purely for convenience of illustration, the scale of the fir fcr similar reasons being arbitrary. In practice, if there very L ,CGG A-scans per B-scan, there would be 1,000 A-scans in the particular screen quad rat Gf which part is shown.All 1,000 of them would therefore intersect the pixel al, 500 would intersect the pixels a2 and bl, and so on with the number of scans per pixel decreasing towards the periphery of the screen down to an average of between 2 and 3 for the extreme peripheral pixels.

The invention sees to achieve acceptably uniform and good picture characteristics over the whole picture area despite the extreme variation of information available, per pixel, between the centre and the periphery.

In one aspect, the invention provides a system for converting A-scan signals in r, Qco-ordinates into display data for an x, y co-ordinate display, in which the display data is stored at x, y co-ordinate display locations, and, for each A-scan signal, signal values for which the r co-ordinate is greater than a predetermined value contribute to the display data and values for which the r co-ordinate is less do not, and the predefierm.ined values of r are different for different A-scans.

The above provides a technique by which the display data, i.e. the data from which a display arrangement is actually to be driven, is rendered more uniform in density as between the display periphery and its centre.

There may be derived (for example by sampling) from an A-scan signal in r, co-ordinates a succession of signa' value3. Those values or functions of then are stored at respective memory or storage locations which are identifiable by means of x, y co-ordinates corresponding to the r, co-ordinates of each sample; however, not all samples are stored, or used to alter the data contained at a storage location.Rather, and especially for the pixels near the screen centre, a substantial proportion of the signal values relating to a particular pixel and derived during one P-scan are ignored an only the remainder are allowed to contribute to the x, y co-ordinate data stored for that pixel.A particular way of achieving this is disclosed below in which none of the succession of signal values derived from a partcular A-scan are permitted to contribute to the data in a pixel memory location until a particular value of co-ord-n2te r (or it may be regarded as a conbffination of co-crdinates x, y) is reached but thereafter the signal values are allowed to contribute to pixel memory locations, the change-over point bel different for different A-scans.

The display data may comprise a respective data value for each display location and each data value may include contributions from a plurality of A-scan signal values whose r, Q co-ordinates are closely similar and whose x, y co-ordinates are the same.

In accordance with a feature of the invention, the predetermined values of r are selected such that during an individual B-scan the number of A-scan signal values contributing to each data value is limited to a predetermined maximum.

The predetermined maximum may be made less than or equal to the number of the plurality of A-scan signal values that contribute to a data value in which case the effect of combining several contributions is to improve the signal to noise ratio of the data value within each B-scan as compared with the signal to noise ratio in the individual A-scans.

However, in the enbodime of the invention which will be described in detail, the plurality of A-scan signal values is greater in number than said predetermined maximum, whereby the data values include contributions from more than one B-scan. In this way, two desirable characteristics are achieved. In addition to an irnr\roveT.ent in signal to noise ratio within an Indivlsual B-scan, the signal to noise ratio in relation to noise having a frequency approximating to that of the B-scans (such as may arise from waves on the sea) is also improved. Furthermore, a degree of persistence is provided whereby a moving target is displayed with a fainter tail adjacent to it indicative of its direction and speed of movement, as will be more fully described. The degree of persistence can be controlled by determining the relationship between the number of A-scans allowed to contribute to the data value within an individual B-scan, and the total number of A-scans allowed to contribute to a data value.

Further, if the number of A-scans from within an individual B-scan which are allowed to contribute to the data value is made not substantially more than the mir.i-.um number of A-scans available per pixel (this minimum number occurring at the picture periphery), ten the eject on the signal to noise ratio of the scan converter and the degree of persistence will be substantially uniform across the picture area.

The invention will be better understood from the following description of an embodiment thereof, which is by way of example only, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which: Figure 1 shows some A-scan waveforms; Figure 2 shows a small group of pixels of a raster display with A-scans superimposed, as has already been discussed in some detail; and Figure 3 shows diagrammatically one form in which the invention can be implemented.

Figure 1 shows some of a typical set of A-scans indicated at Al, A2 to An, each A-scan consisting of an analog waveform extending from time t1 to time t2. A large plurality, perhaps thousands, of such A-scans constitute a single B-scan as indicated in the FIgure and as previously explained.

The A-scan signals are applied one at a time, as they are generated, to the terminal A of the system in Figure 3. The terminals r and a receive the appropriate r,e co-ordinate signals for each A-scan. During interval t1 to t2 the A-scan signal is repetitively sampled at high speed by a sampling circuit 10 to produce analog samples whose values represent the amplitude of the A-scan signa' at t a succession of r co- ordinates. The O co-ordinate of an individual A-scan signal is of course constant.The analog samples are passed to an analog-to-digital converter 12 which converts them into 4-bit digital form in which they are transferred to an A-scan store which may be a RAM having sufficient capacity to contain all the digitized samples arising from a single A-scan. During the interval t2 to t3 when no A-scan input information is being received, the remainder of the system processes digital A-scan values from A-scan store 14 and stores them in a frame store 16 at appropriate addresses which are identifiable by means of x, y co-ordinates. This will be described in more detail below.

Continuously, and without any particular timed relationship to the other events, a raster-type CRT display unit 18 sends read address signals in x, y co ordinates to the frame store 16 in a sequence matching that required for the raster display format, receives from the frame store the stored data values in the requested sequence, and uses tnem to modulate its scanning beam thereby presenting a raster display of the targets within the field and range of the radar equipment.

The process of writing information from the A-scan otors 14 into the frame store 16 will now be described.

In order to write the digitized A-scan values from A-scan store 14 into frame store 16, the appropriate x, y addresses in the frame store 16 have to be addressed in correct sequence, and the addresses are generated from the r,Q co-ordinate signals by means of a scan translator 20 and x and y counters 22 and 24. The scan translator 20 contains a look-up table which, in response to a given value of Q and a changing value of r (i.e. throughout a given A-scan) it uses to generate x and y address increment signals. These signals are shown on Figure 3 as Ax and Ay and for each new pixel, or frame store address, Ax or Ay is either 1 or 0.

Referring to Figure 2, and to the line representing Ascan An, it can be seen that the Ax and Ay increments required during the initial part of A-scan An, starting from pixel al, are 01 (i.e. x increment 0, y incremen' 1), 10. 01, 01, 10. This sequence Will address ln order the pixels or addresses (figure 2 can serve as an illustration of either) identified as al, a2, b2, b3, b and c4 in that order, which is appropriate for Ascan An. The x and y increment signals are applied to the respective x and y counters 22 and 24 which accumulate them as x and y write address signals which are used to address the frame store 16 in, for example, the specific sequence just described for A-scan An.Such address signal sequences start from the beginning of Al and continue until the end of the final A-scan of a Bscan, then repeat.

As will be readily appreciated by those skilled in the art, standard timing circuitry (not shown) will be employed to ensure that when counters 22, 24 are generating the x, y address of a particular pixel, the digitized sample for that same pixel is delivered from the output of A-scan store 14.

A-scan store 14 delivers its digitized samples in succession as inputs I to a recursive filter 26.

iur-ose t next such input is the kt input which is destined for a specific x, y address. That address will already, owing to previous operation of the system, contain a data value S(k-1) which was the last output from filter 26 to be delivered to that address.

'he:- thaw address is addressed the kth time, frame store 16 sends the present data value S(k-1) to recursive filter 2 which is receiving the new incus I(k). The recursive filter 26 generates a new output data value S(k) in accordance with the following function: 1 S(k) = S(k-1) + 1 (I(k) - S(k-1)).

In this function, k1 is a filter factor which can be set to any suitable value.

The effect of this function (other functions might be employed to achieve a similar result) is that the value of S(k) is dependent not merely on the most recent input I, but on the values of several successive recent inputs I, the actual number depending upon the chosen value of the filter factor k1 and the output resolution of frame store 16 (this may for example be four bits). In general, the greater the value of ki the greater is the averaging effect and consequently the greater is the improvement in signal to noise ratio. For that reason it is in principle desirable to make k1 reasonably large. Suppose it is chosen such that the frame store data value includes contributions only from approximately the last 16 A-scans. As has already been mentioned, pixels close to the centre of the screen may be accessed hundreds, or even thousands, of tinges in succession by successive A-scans in a single B-scan, the worst case being the pixel al of Figure 2. This would result in very rapid saturation of the filter for these pixels i.e. S(k) would have a value determined only by a small fraction of the available A-scans in a B-scan, and there would be no B-scan to B-scan averaging to reduce low frequency noise. On the other hand, peripheral pixels may be accessed only three times per B-scan so there would be averaging over five B-scans. The resulting variations in picture characteristics between the centre and periphery are undesirable.

An aspect of the present invention involves a technique by which this can be avoided. Suppose, for example, that it is decided to limit to four the number of times an individual pixel can be addressed during a single B-scan. In an aspect of the invention, this is achieved b not permitting the values I derived from an individual A-scan to access a pixel until a special value of r is reached within that A-scan. Thereafter, the successive values of T for that A-scan are permitted to contribute to the value of S(k) written into the appropriate pixel storage locations of the frame store.

The particular values of r employed as these start nn t.' ng i4--'C into the frame store are derived as illustrated in Figure 2. Referring to that figure, for each of A-scans Al to nX it is satisfactory for each one of pixel al, bl, ci and di to be accessed because this will not result in any of those pixels (nor any pixels further to their left) being accessed more than four times. However, when A-scan A5 is to be processed, it is not written in to any of pixels al to d1 because they have already has' the maximum number of for contributions during this particular B-scan.

Signal values from A-scan A5 are therefore not written into pixels until the start point indicated at 28 is reached but that point and for increasing values of r beyond that point all signal values I are written into the frame store 16 after processing by the recursive filter 26. A-scans A6 to A8 are treated similarly and the start points for them to access pixels are indicated at 30, 32 and 34. When A-scan A9 arrives, it is not written into the frame store through the recursive filter until start point 36 is reached, so as to avoid making a fifth contribution to pixel d2 of the frame store. To aid interpretation of Figure 2, the portions of an A-scan which are written into the frame store are indicated by heavier lines than those portions which are not written into the frame store.It will be appreciated that the process just outlined can be continued for all the A-scans of the quadrant illustrated in Figure 2 to develop a complete set of start points such as 28 to 36 for all of the A-scans in that quadrant. The start points for the other quadrants can be equivalent to those for the first.

In order to put this pattern of writing into the frame store into effect, the look-up table contained in scan translator 20 is modified to include a special characteristic, and a sequence detector 38 is employed to detect this special characteristic and use it to enable or disable an AND gate 20 which controls the writing of new data values S(kj into the frame store 16.

A particular form of such a system will be described by first referring to how the scan translator is arranged to deal with A-scan A9. The normal initial sequence of increment pairs for this A-scan, starting from pixel al, would be 10, 01, 10, 10, 01, thus arriving at pixel d3. However, since this A-scan is not to be written into the frame store for the first three pixels which it traverses, the Ax and Ay values generated by the scan translator during that part of the A-scan are unimportant so far as the writing process itself is concerned.Instead of generating the above L X, A y increments which would normally be expected, the scan translator look-up table is arranged to generate first all but one of the 01 increments needed to arrive at d3 (i.e. a single 01), then all the 10 increments needed (i.e. three of them), then the prevocusly onitted 01 increnent. In this way, the final sequence of increment pairs is made to be 10,01.

The particular sequence 10, 01 is the special characteristic which the sequence detector 38 is arranged to detect. In response, the sequence detector enables gate 40 via line 42. Consequently, the next value of S(k) from recursive filter 26 will be written through gate 40 into the frame store. It will be appreciated that this data value is the one correspond ing to I for the start point 36 of A-scan A9 in pixel d3 of Figure 2. Thus, contributions from A-scan A9 start being contributed to the data values inserted into frame store 16 from the correct point. Following recognition of the special sequence by sequence detector 38, gate 40 continues to be enabled until the particular A-scan is completed, so that each pixel or memory location beyond start point 36 receives a contribution from A-scan A9.

In the example just given, the normal sequence of ineremen v pairs for the A-scan did not Include any 11 pairs. However, the normal sequence sometimes will.

In general, to achieve the final 10,01 pairs to initiate writing, the look-up table in scan translator 20 can be organised so that to reach every start point pixel a tue te increnents are generaed first, all but one of the 01 increments next, then all of the 10 increments, and finally the omitted 01 increment, whereby the special sequence 10, 01 is always generated in order to bring the frame store writing process into operatic at the correct pixel.

It should be appreciated that other patterns of writing start points than that illustrated by Figure 2 can be devised which will also have the effect of limiting the number of pixel accesses, and the same technique of initiating writing at the correct point can be applied to them.

The above explanation relates to operation in the top left quadrant. The same look-up table is used for operation in each of the other three quadrants because the pattern of writing into them will be identical to that in the first. However the addresses of pixels in the other three quadrants which are equivalent to a pixel at address x1 y1, in the top left quadrant will be -x1, y1, -x1 -Y1 and x1, -y1, (in clockwise sequence of quadrants). Well known techniques can be used to cause the x and/or y address signals (as appropriate in a given quadrant) to increment in the negative direction, in response to identification of the current quadrant from the value of the &commat; signal.

U n0 the above techniques, the frame store i 0 will contain a data value for every x, y address. In order to display the radar picture in raster formo the display unit 18 is provided, using conventional techniques and components, with means for generating x, y read address signals which are appropriately related to its x and y beam deflection signals, these read address signals being used to address the frame store 16 which deiivers the appropriate data values to the display, these then being converted in conventional manner to analog signals which in turn are used to modulate the beam intensity.

The above explanation deals with the processing, storage and display of the signals generated during a single B-scan. In operation, B-scan signals are received in succession at approximately one B-scan per second. At the beginning of a B-scan, the frame store 16 will already contain data values which have been previously generated. The effect of the recursive filter 26, operating in accordance with the transfer function set out by the equation already given, is that the data value for each pixel contains a contribution from each of a limited number of the most recent A-scan samples belonging to that pixel. The actual number is defined by the value chosen for the filter constant k1, and the output resolution of the frame store 16.If it is made equal to or less than the maximum number of data write operations into the frame store per pixel as already described with reference to Figure 2, then the data value for a given pixel after each B-scan will be a function only of the A-scan samples for that pixel during that same B-scan. Information from preceding Bscans will have dropped out of the output of the recursive filter. In the pa-'ncular embodi..en' described, since the maximum number of permitted write operations into the frame store per B-scan is four, the conditions just described are obtained by making the filter factor k1 such that the filter remembers or integrates only over the most recent four or less A-scan samples.

Then, the display 18 will show only the information derived from the most recent B-scan, since that is all the frame store 16 contains.

However, if the filter factor k1 is chosen so that the number of A-scan samples contributing to a data value in frame store 16 is greater than the maximum number of write operations into a given frame store address per B-scan, then a data value in the frame store 16 will contain information not only from the most recent -can, but also from the previous one, ano possibly also from one or more further preceding E- scans the actual number of B-scans involved depending upon the exact value of k1 chosen.

This enables a delectable degree of persistence to be achnered in the picture on the display unit 18, the effect being that a moving target shown on the display 18 will appear at full brightness in its current position, and at progressively decreasing brightnesses in the positions it occuppied during a succession of most recent B-scans.For example, a point target which has moved upwards within column b of Figure 2 may appear at full brightness in pixel b4, half brightness in pixel b3, quarter brightness in pixel b2, and zero brightness (i.e. absent) in pixel bi. In this way, targets moving relative to the antenna are given, on the display, a "tail" the direction of which indicates their direction of relative movement and the length of which indicates their speed of relative movement, both of these factors being of great value to the user of the radar equipment in interpreting the picture provided on the display.

It is to be noted that the signal to noise ratio for relatively high frequencies can be increased by increasing the maximum number of times an individual frame store memory location can be written during a Bscan, because this in effect permits averaging over a larger number of A-scan samples. On the other hand, for a given value of filter factor k1, the improvement cf signal to noise ratio will be at the expense of some or all of the persistence from B-scan to B-scan and at the expense of lower frequency signal to noise ratio.

Further, the improvement can only be obtained for pixels where extra A-scan samples are available for use, which may not be the case at and near to the periphery of the screen. where there are far fewer A-scans per pixel than near the screen centre. Reduced per sistence might be compensated for near the screen centre by increasing the filter factor but in the peripheral areas, in addition to the signal to noise ratio not being improved, the increased filter factor will generate additional and perhaps excessive persistence.

It will be apparent that the number of pixels on the screen, the filter factor, the desired degree of persistence, and the achievable signal to noise ratio are all lined and in a practical design compromises must be made depending upon which performance and cost factors are most important in a particular application.

It should be understood that the A-scan signals upon which the invention operates, operates to produce x, y co-ordinate signal values may be original A-scan signals as delivered directly from radar echo receiving circuitry or may be processed versions of such original sgnals, for example signals in which signal-to-noise radio h been improved by prcoessng together a plurality of adjacent original A-scan signals to provide a pre-processed A-scan signal to which the invention is then applied. The term "A-scan signal" is thus not limited to the original signals from a radar receIver, where used in the following claims.

Claims (1)

1. CLAIMS:

   1. A system for displaying on a matrix type display, data obtained from the A-scan signals of a vector scanning arrangement, in which the display over at least the major part of its area shows data, which has been electronically stored, from the A-scans of more that one B-scan whereby to provide persistence in the display.

   2. A system for converting A-scan signals in r, Q co-ordinates into display data for an x, y co-ordinate display, in which the display data is stored at x, y coordinate display locations, and, for each A-scan signal, signal values for which the r co-ordinate is greater than a predetermined value contribute to the display data and values for which the r co-ordinate is less do not, and the predetermined values of r are different for different A-scans.

   3. A system as claimed in claim 2, in which the display data comprises a respective data value for each display location and each data value includes contributions from a plurality of A-scan signal values whose r, Q co-ordinates are closely similar and whose x, y coordinates are the same.

   14. A system as claimed in claim 3, wherein the predetermined values of r are selected such that during an individual B-scan the number of A-scan signal values contributing to each data value is limited to a predetermined maximum.

   5. A system as claimed in claim 4, wherein said plurality of A-scan signal values is greater in number than said predetermined maximum, whereby the data values include contributions from more than one R-scan.

   6. A system as claimed in claim 5, wherein each data value is a function of its own previous value and the value of the next A-scan signal value to contribute te it, and lon function 15 such as to give the most recent contributing A-scan signal greater weight and the less recent contributing A-scan signals lessen weight.

   7. A system as claimed in claim 6, wherein the data values are digital whereby the number of said plurality of A-scan signal values is limited.

   8. A system as claimed in claim 6 or claim 7, wherein the function is: S(k) = S(k-l) + kl where S(k-l) is the previous data value S(k) is the newest data value I(k) is the newest A-scan signal value k1 is a constant.

   9. A system as claimed in any one of claims 3 to 8, comprising means for recognising those r, O co-ordinates which correspond to the respective predetermined r values for the different A-scans, and for starting the contribution of A-scan values to data values in response to such recognition.

   10. A system as claimed in claim 9, wherein said means comprises a look-up table which outputs a starting signal In response to those r, O co-ordinates being inputted.

   11. A system as claimed in any one of claims 3 to 8, wherein the data values are stored in respective storage locations of a storage means which locations are addressable by x, y address signals, the x, y address signals are changed during an A-scan signal by increment x and increment y signals generated by an r, O to x, y scan converter, the predetermined value for r for each A-scan is set into the scan converter in the form of a predetermined sequence of increment x and increment y signals which are made to occur when the x,y address signals reach values corresponding to that value of r for that Ascan, means is provided for detecting the occurrence of the predetermined sequence, and the contribution of Ascan values to the data value is started in response to its detection.

   12. A system as claimed in claim 11, wherein the predetermined sequence is preceded by increment x and increment y signals which do not result in x, y address signals corresponding to the r, Q co-ordinates for the Ascan, but is followed by increment x and increment y signals which do.

   13. A system as claimed in any preceding claim, comprising display means operable in a raster scan format, and means for delivering to the display means the display data for the x, y co-ordinate display locations of the display means in a sequence appropriately related to the raster scan.

   114. A system for converting A-scan signals in r,Q co-ordinates into display data for x,y co-ordinate display locations, which is arranged to generate the display data for each x,y display location from. a limited n cm V C r v ~ S C ? n S 1 V a 1 u e r

   15. A system as claimed in claim 14, wherein said limited plurality includes signal values from A-scans which are in different B-scans.

   16. A system as claimed in claim 1, 14 or 15, wherein the display data are developed using the features specified in any of claims 2 to 13.