JP3664453B2 - Ultrasonic diagnostic equipment - Google Patents

Description

[0001]
[Industrial application fields]
The present invention relates to an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus capable of recording image data and reproducing the recorded image data.
[0002]
[Prior art]
FIG. 3 shows an example of a conventional ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus system configured to record image data. In the figure, an ultrasonic probe 110, a transmission / reception unit 120, a digital scan converter 130, and a monitor 140 constitute a normal ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus.
[0003]
The monitor 140 displays the analog TV video signal on the screen, and diagnosis is performed by looking at the image displayed on the screen. In addition, the system controller 160 makes settings related to the measurement state for diagnosis such as the driving frequency of the ultrasonic probe, the operation of the ultrasonic probe, the type of the ultrasonic probe, and the like in the transmission / reception unit 120 and the digital scan converter 130. The entire apparatus is controlled by setting the display format and display mode. The above setting can be performed from the operation panel 160a connected to the system controller 160, and measurement can be performed under the recording conditions set on the operation panel 160a.
[0004]
The recording device 150 is for recording an analog TV video signal, and is connected to the analog TV video signal output of the digital scan converter 130. As this recording apparatus 150, for example, a VTR, an analog MO, or the like is used.
[0005]
The ultrasonic echo received by the ultrasonic probe 110 is converted into an electric signal, subjected to signal processing by the transmission / reception unit 120 and output as an echo video signal. The digital scan converter 130 converts the echo video signal into a digital value by the A / D converter 130a, stores it as image data in the frame memory 130b, sequentially reads out the image data from the frame memory 130b, and the D / A converter 130c. Is output as an analog TV video signal. In order to record the image displayed on the screen of the monitor 140, the image is recorded on a recording medium (VTR tape, MO disk) of the recording device 150, and the recorded image is reproduced on the recording device and viewed on the monitor 140. be able to.
[0006]
[Problems to be solved by the invention]
In the above-described ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus, since the recording is performed in an analog manner, the reproduced image has deteriorated in quality that is inferior to the original image. Recently, digitalization has progressed, and echo signals received by the ultrasound probe 110 have undergone digital signal processing after A / D conversion, resulting in finer images and improved image quality. Yes. Therefore, it is desired to record an image with less deterioration in image quality. Even if images are recorded digitally, the amount of data becomes very large, so that many images cannot be recorded on a recording medium.
[0007]
  Therefore, the present invention providesWhile keeping visual image quality degradation smallAn object of the present invention is to obtain an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus capable of recording many images on a recording medium.
[0008]
[Means for Solving the Problems]
  An ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus according to the invention of claim 1 of the present application,Based on the image data of the ultrasonic echo received by the ultrasonic probe, image display means for constructing and displaying an ultrasonic image, and corresponding to the diagnosis partA controller for setting and controlling;According to the setting and control by the controllerA compression rate setting unit for setting a compression rate, a compression unit for compressing the image data at the set compression rate, and a recording unit for recording the image data compressed by the compression unit. It is characterized by.
[0009]
  In addition to the configuration of the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus according to the first aspect of the present invention, the controller includes:Including means for setting the display of the body mark,The compression rate setting means includesSet the compression ratio according to the setting of the body markIt is characterized by doing.
[0012]
[Action]
  According to the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus of the first aspect of the present invention configured as described above, the image data stored in the frame memory is compressed by the compression means at a compression rate given according to the recording condition, and thus compressed. Since the recorded image data is recorded in the recording means, it is possible to perform compression while maintaining the image quality at an appropriate compression rate according to the situation. Therefore, various images obtained according to the situation,A large number of images can be recorded on the recording medium while keeping the degradation of the apparent image quality small.
[0013]
According to the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus according to the second aspect of the present invention configured as described above, the measurement state is controlled and the display format is set and controlled according to the conditions set on the operation panel. Since the compression ratio is given based on the panel settings, it is possible to automatically obtain the appropriate compression ratio according to the situation, and the optimal image data compression / recording is automatically performed to maintain the image quality. It can be carried out.
[0014]
According to the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus according to the third aspect of the present invention configured as described above, the image data recorded by the recording means is obtained, and the image data is expanded by the compression means, and the data is given to the frame memory. Therefore, the recorded image data can be reproduced.
[0015]
According to the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus of the invention of claim 5 configured as described above, optimal image data compression / recording is automatically performed according to the color tone of the ultrasonic image and the correlation between the ultrasonic images. Can do.
[0016]
【Example】
Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.
[0017]
FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.
[0018]
The ultrasonic probe 110 is for applying an ultrasonic wave to a subject by driving the transmission / reception unit 120, converting an ultrasonic echo into an electrical signal, and outputting the electrical signal to the transmission / reception unit 120. An ultrasonic wave is output from the ultrasonic probe 110 in accordance with the conditions set on the operation panel 160a, and the ultrasonic echo received by the ultrasonic probe 110 is digitized and signal-processed to generate image data as an image display circuit. To 130. The image display circuit 130 stores and stores the image data in the frame memory 130b, constructs an ultrasonic image according to the setting of the operation panel 160a, sequentially reads out the image data from the frame memory 130b, and the D / A converter 130c. This is a circuit for outputting as an analog TV video signal, and is equivalent to the above-described conventional digital scan converter in that an ultrasonic echo is formed into an ultrasonic image. The monitor 140 is a display for displaying an ultrasonic image on the screen from the analog TV video signal. About these, the thing similar to what is usually used is used.
[0019]
Further, the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus includes an image data compression circuit 210, an image data output circuit 220, and a data recording apparatus 230 in place of the analog recording apparatus 150 of the conventional example.
[0020]
The image data compression circuit 210 is used as compression means for compressing / decompressing image data by hardware, and compresses image data read from the frame memory 130b by the image display circuit 130 during recording. The data is output to the data recording device 230 via the image data output circuit 220, and at the time of reproduction, the image data recorded in the data recording device 230 is decompressed and output to the frame memory 130b. Various data compression / decompression methods of the image data compression circuit 210 can be used in the present invention, but the JPEG method is adopted in this embodiment.
[0021]
FIG. 2 shows a block configuration of the image data compression circuit 210. The image data compression circuit 210 includes a DCT (discrete cosine transform) calculation block 210a, a quantizer 210b, an encoder 210c, and a decoder 210d. , An inverse quantizer 210e, an inverse DCT block 210f, and the like.
[0022]
In the JPEG method, one original image is divided into 8 × 8 pixel blocks, and processing is performed in units of the block images. First, in the compression process, the DCT operation is performed on the image data 130d for one block image read from the frame memory 130b by the DCT operation block 210a, thereby performing frequency decomposition of the block image. The quantized 210b is quantized with respect to the frequency-decomposed block image, and the quantized block image is encoded with the encoder 210c to obtain compressed data 210g. Then, it is recorded in the data recording device 230 via the image data output circuit 220. The compression process is sequentially performed for each block image, and one image displayed on the monitor 230 is compressed. Next, in the decompression process, the compressed data 210g sent from the data recording device 230 via the image data output circuit 220 is decoded by the decoder 210d and dequantized by the inverse quantizer 210e. . Then, an inverse DCT operation is performed by the inverse DCT block 210f, whereby a reproduced image 130f is obtained and transferred to the frame memory 130b.
[0023]
Here, encoding and decoding are performed using an encoding table, and quantization and inverse quantization are performed using a quantization table. At the time of compression, the compression rate changes depending on the fineness of the original image, and the compression rate can also be changed by changing the quantization table and the encoding table. If the quantization table is made small and the compression ratio is low, high image quality that is the same as the original image can be obtained, and if the compression ratio is medium, medium image quality that does not bother degradation is obtained, and the quantization table is made larger and higher. When the compression rate is set, the high frequency component is reduced and the deterioration of the image quality is increased. Thus, the level of image quality obtained at the time of expansion is changed by changing the quantization table and the encoding table. The quantization table and the encoding table are supplied from the system controller 160 at the time of compression. At the time of decompression, the quantization table and the coding table are input from the compressed data 210g to the quantization table and the coding table block, and the quantization table and the coding table used at the time of decompression are expanded. Is called.
[0024]
The data recording device 230 shown in FIG. 1 records / reproduces compressed data 210g. As this device, for example, a storage device capable of recording / reproducing digital signals such as an MO (magneto-optical disk) device or a removable hard disk is used. be able to. The image data output circuit 220 is a circuit for interfacing between the data recording device 230 and the data recording device 230. As this device, for example, a device capable of exchanging digital signals such as a SCSI interface, Ethernet, or other network device is used. it can.
[0025]
Similarly to the conventional example, the system controller 160 performs setting related to the measurement state at the time of diagnosis to the transmission / reception unit 120 according to the setting on the operation panel 160a connected thereto, and performs drive control of the ultrasound probe. The entire apparatus is controlled, such as setting and controlling the display mode for the image display circuit 130. In addition to this, the system controller 160 controls recording / playback, and at the time of recording, gives the quantization table and the encoding table to the image data compression circuit 210 based on the setting of the operation panel 160a, and compresses the compression rate. Control to change.
[0026]
The operation panel 160a is a user interface of the system controller 160, and input devices such as a touch display, a switch, and a trackball are arranged as necessary, and the user can operate the system controller 160 using the input devices. ing.
[0027]
Next, the operation will be described. First, at the time of measurement, an ultrasonic wave is output from the ultrasonic probe 110 according to the conditions set on the operation panel 160a, and the ultrasonic echo received by the ultrasonic probe 110 is converted into an electric signal. The signal is processed by the transmission / reception unit 120 and output as an echo video signal. The image display circuit 130 converts the echo video signal into a digital value by the A / D converter 130a and stores it as image data in the frame memory 130b. The image data is sequentially transmitted from the frame memory 130b according to the setting of the operation panel 160a. The read D / A converter 130c outputs the analog TV video signal. The monitor 140 displays an image corresponding to the setting of the operation panel 160a.
[0028]
At the time of recording, the image data read from the frame memory 130b of the image display circuit 130 is also output to the image data compression circuit 210, and the image data is compressed for each block. The data is compressed at a compression rate set by the quantization table and the encoding table given from the system controller 160 according to the setting of the operation panel 160a. The image data compressed by the image data compression circuit 210 is recorded in the data recording device 230 via the image data output circuit 220.
[0029]
During reproduction, image data is output from the data recording device 230 to the image data compression circuit 210 via the image data output circuit 220, and the image data compression circuit 210 decompresses the image data from the data recording device 230. The expanded image data is stored in the frame memory 130b of the image display circuit 130. Similarly to the measurement, image data is sequentially read out from the frame memory 130b by the image display circuit 130 and output as an analog TV video signal by the D / A converter 130c.
[0030]
In this way, the same image as the image displayed on the monitor 140 can be compressed and recorded and reproduced. Here, at the time of recording, the system controller 160 changes the compression rate of the image data compression circuit 210 by changing the quantization table and the encoding table as follows according to the setting of the operation panel 160a, and performs recording. Is called. As a result, the amount of data recorded in the data recording device 230 is reduced while maintaining the image quality so as not to deteriorate, and the number of images that can be recorded in the data recording device 230 is increased. The operation of the system controller 160 for each setting on the operation panel 160a is as follows.
[0031]
On the operation panel 160a, the image mode of the image constructed by the scan converter, such as the B mode, the M mode, and the color Doppler mode, can be set. By this setting, only the monochrome image or the color and the monochrome image are mixed. The image can be selected. In this set mode, the image from the image display circuit 130 can be displayed on the monitor 140. Then, the system controller 160 increases the compression rate of the image data compression circuit 210 by increasing the color difference quantization table so that the color difference information becomes zero in the case of only a monochrome image. In the case of only a monochrome image, there is no need for color difference information, so the image can be recorded with a small amount of data with little deterioration in image quality. It is possible to increase the number of images that can be recorded in the data recording device 230 while maintaining the image quality.
[0032]
In addition, the operation panel 160a can set a plurality of drive frequencies such that the drive frequency of the ultrasonic probe 110 is set to 2.5 MHz or 3.5 MHz. The transmission / reception unit 120 can set the drive frequency according to this setting. Then, the ultrasonic probe 110 is driven. Then, the system controller 160 increases the quantization table and increases the compression rate of the image data compression circuit 210 when the drive frequency is set to 2.5 MHz. When the drive frequency is 2.5 MHz, the image has low resolution, high penetration, and low image quality. Therefore, even if the compression rate is increased, the image can be recorded with small image quality degradation. The number of images that can be recorded in the data recording device 230 while maintaining the image quality can be increased.
[0033]
  In the operation panel 160a,For example24cm to 4cm etc.RangeUltrasound imagedepthCan be set variously, thisdepthDepending on the setting, the transmitting / receiving unit 120Collecting ultrasound echoesThe image data is captured by the image display circuit 130. The system controller 160 thendepthAs the value increases, the quantization table is increased and the compression rate of the image data compression circuit 210 is increased. The greater the depth,Deterioration in the propagation process in ultrasonic transmission / reception becomes large,Image has low resolutionNextSince the image quality is low, the image can be recorded so that deterioration in image quality is not noticeable even when the compression rate is increased. The number of images that can be recorded in the data recording device 230 while maintaining the image quality can be increased.
[0034]
On the operation panel 160a, probe settings for selecting from a plurality of probes such as a linear probe or a sector probe can be made, and an image corresponding to the probe settings can be obtained. Then, the system controller 160 enlarges the quantization table when the linear probe is set, and increases the compression rate of the image data compression circuit 210. In the case of a linear probe, the correlation between the vertical and horizontal directions of the image is stronger than that of a sector probe,sectorIn the image obtained with the probe, the vertical direction is stronger than the horizontal correlation. Therefore,sectorIn the case of the probe, since the horizontal correlation is low and the resolution is poor, the image quality degradation is small even if the compression rate is increased. Therefore, the image can be recorded with a small amount of data and small image quality degradation, and the number of images that can be recorded in the data recording device 230 while maintaining the image quality can be increased.
[0035]
The operation panel 160a can set a color mode for displaying in color. At this setting, color image data is stored in the image display circuit 130 and displayed on the monitor 140. The image becomes color. In this setting, the system controller 160 may set the compression rate of the image data compression circuit 210 so as to adopt a “4: 2: 2 system” in which the horizontal direction of the color difference information is thinned out excessively. It can be selected. Thereby, although the compression ratio is high, the deterioration of the image quality is small, the image can be recorded with a small amount of data, and the number of images that can be recorded in the data recording device 230 can be increased while maintaining the image quality.
[0036]
In color display, modes such as VT display and power display for displaying blood flow information such as flow velocity, dispersion, and power can be set on the operation panel 160a, and blood corresponding to the setting can be set. Flow information is displayed on the monitor 140 from the image display circuit 130. Then, the system controller 160 increases the compression rate of the image data compression circuit 210 by limiting the appearance rate of the encoding table to blue and red when the power display is set. In the case of power display, white, blue, and red appear in the image (no green), so the color difference display is only blue and red. To increase the number of images that can be recorded in the data recording device 230 while maintaining the image quality.
[0037]
The operation panel 160a can set display formats such as B Single and B Dual. In the case of B Single, one B-mode image is displayed on the monitor 140, and in the case of B Dual, B is displayed. Two mode images are displayed side by side on the monitor 140. Furthermore, the base color of the image displayed on the operation panel 160a can be set from black to gray. When the base color is black for B Single, the system controller 160 sets the appearance rate of the coding table so that black is large. When the base color is gray for B Single, the system controller 160 sets the appearance rate of the coding table. The compression rate of the image data compression circuit 210 is increased by setting so that gray is increased. Since the image for B Single has a large base area, the image data contains a large amount of color data that forms the base color, so that the image can be recorded with a small amount of data by increasing the compression rate so that there is no deterioration in image quality. It is possible to increase the number of images that can be recorded in the data recording device 230 while maintaining the above.
[0038]
On the operation panel 160a, body mark display of a scan section can be set, and by this setting, marks such as a circulatory organ, abdomen, PV, and intraoperative are displayed on the monitor 140 together with an ultrasonic image. From this mark, it can be seen which diagnostic site and situation the ultrasonic image is. From this setting, the system controller 160 can increase the compression ratio of the image data compression circuit 210 by increasing the quantization table when the scan section is a circulatory device than when it is an abdomen. It has become. Since the image in the case of a circulatory organ has a low dynamic range compared to the abdomen and has an image quality that focuses on morphological diagnosis, image quality degradation is not noticeable even if high frequency components are removed. The amount of data to be recorded can be reduced by increasing the compression rate so that there is no deterioration in image quality, and the number of images that can be recorded in the data recording device 230 can be increased while maintaining the image quality.
[0039]
Further, on the operation panel 160a, various settings such as ultrasonic driving power, raster density, and combination focus can be set according to the operation of the apparatus. If an image with poor resolution is obtained by these settings, the controller 160 increases the compression table by increasing the quantization table. Also in this case, the amount of data to be recorded can be reduced by increasing the compression rate so as not to deteriorate the image quality, and the number of images that can be recorded in the data recording device 230 while maintaining the image quality can be increased.
[0040]
Further, when the above settings of the operation panel 160a are variously combined, the controller 160 enlarges the quantization table when an image with a low resolution is obtained, and sets the encoding table when the color difference display is poor. The compression ratio is increased by adjusting the appearance rate of the color. When data compression is performed, the higher the appearance probability, the lower the entropy and the lower bit encoding, so that the compression rate can be increased if the image quality level is the same. Therefore, since the appearance probability regarding the image data such as resolution and color can be known in advance by setting the operation panel 160a, the quantization table and the encoding table are created according to the known appearance probability and the compression rate is changed, so that the same image quality level can be obtained. Since a high compression rate can be realized, the amount of data to be recorded can be reduced, and the number of images that can be recorded in the data recording device 230 while maintaining the image quality can be increased.
[0041]
In a normal image processing apparatus that performs image compression, such as a CT or X-ray image processing apparatus, the quantization table and the encoding table are constant and the compression rate is constant or semi-fixed for the target image. In such an apparatus, since the image is not necessarily compressed at an appropriate compression rate with respect to the image quality of the target image, the image quality may be deteriorated more than necessary. Therefore, in order not to deteriorate the image quality, it is considered that the compression rate is lowered more than necessary to reduce the number of images that can be recorded on the recording medium.
[0042]
On the other hand, since this ultrasound diagnostic apparatus selects the compression rate according to the recording conditions as described above, various images obtained according to the situation of the ultrasound diagnosis can be obtained while maintaining the image quality. A small amount of recording and playback is possible. Therefore, a large number of various images obtained by ultrasonic diagnosis can be recorded by a recording medium such as MO. Then, since the controller automatically sets the compression rate according to the recording condition based on the setting on the operation panel, it is possible to automatically perform the optimum data compression without deteriorating the image quality. By using the JPEG method, it is possible to automatically compress and record optimal image data according to the color tone of the ultrasonic image and the correlation of the ultrasonic image.
[0043]
Further, since the data amount is reduced by the compression, the transmission amount to the data recording device 230 is reduced, so that the data transfer time to the data recording device 230 is shortened and the recording time is shortened. Moreover, since the waiting time is shortened, the burden on the operator of the apparatus can be reduced.
[0044]
In addition, if an image is converted into an analog signal or recorded in analog, the image is essentially deteriorated, whereas this apparatus records digital image data digitally, so that the image is Degradation is very small, and the image is compressed while maintaining the image quality at an appropriate compression rate, so that the resolution and resolution of the image can be increased.
[0045]
The present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiments, and various modifications can be made.
[0046]
Although an example in which the JPEG method is used as the compression method has been shown, moving image compression may be performed using the MPEG method. At this time, in addition to the operation of changing the compression rate similar to the above embodiment, the number of frames per second of the ultrasonic image can be set from 3 to 70 on the operation panel 160a. The compression rate of the image data compression circuit is changed according to the setting. In particular, the number of frames may differ by more than 7 times between a monochrome image and a color image depending on the ultrasound recording conditions. Therefore, if the MPEG method is used, the compression rate can be further improved by inter-frame prediction as the number of frames increases. .
[0047]
In addition to the above-described examples, the setting of the operation panel includes all necessary settings for ultrasonic diagnosis, such as setting of the pulse repetition frequency and setting of the Doppler mode. In the ultrasonic diagnosis, the images obtained differ depending on the situation, but the compression with the image quality maintained at an appropriate compression rate according to the setting of the operation panel can be performed.
[0048]
Furthermore, although an example in which compression is automatically determined by the controller based on the setting of the operation panel has been shown, as a recording condition, all conditions that depend on the situation at the time of ultrasonic diagnosis, for example, pulse repetition frequency ( PRF), Doppler signal and all other conditions for ultrasonic operation and the state of the subject are included. It becomes possible to perform compression with little deterioration in image quality at an appropriate compression rate according to the image obtained according to the situation, and it is possible to increase the number of images that can be recorded in the data recording device 230 while maintaining the image quality.
[0049]
【The invention's effect】
  As described above, according to the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus of the present invention, the image data is compressed by the compression means at a compression ratio given according to the recording condition, and the compressed image data is recorded. Therefore, compression that maintains image quality at an appropriate compression rate according to the situation can be performed,More images can be recorded on the recording medium while keeping the visual quality degradation small..
[0050]
According to the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus of claim 2 of the present application, since the controller gives the compression rate based on the setting of the control panel, it becomes possible to automatically obtain an appropriate compression rate according to the situation. The optimum image data can be automatically compressed and recorded so as to maintain the image quality.
[0051]
According to the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus of the third aspect of the present invention, the recorded image data can be reproduced.
[0052]
According to the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus of claim 5 of the present application, it is possible to automatically compress and record optimal image data according to the color tone of the ultrasonic image and the correlation of the ultrasonic image.
[Brief description of the drawings]
FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a block configuration of an image data compression circuit.
FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a configuration example of a conventional ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus system.
[Explanation of symbols]
110 Ultrasonic probe 130 Image display circuit 130b Frame memory
140 Monitor 160 Operation Panel 210 Image Data Compression Circuit
230 Data recording device 260 System controller.

Claims (3)

An image display means for constructing and displaying an ultrasonic image based on image data by ultrasonic echoes received by the ultrasonic probe;
A controller that performs settings according to the diagnostic site ;
A compression rate setting means for setting a compression rate in accordance with the diagnostic part specified by the setting;
Compression means for compressing the image data at the set compression rate;
An ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus comprising: recording means for recording image data compressed by the compression means. The controller is
Including means for setting the display of the body mark,
The compression rate setting means includes
The ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus according to claim 1, wherein a compression rate is set according to the setting of the body mark . An image display means for constructing and displaying an ultrasonic image based on image data by ultrasonic echoes received by the ultrasonic probe;
A controller that performs settings according to the type of the ultrasound probe;
A compression rate setting means for setting a compression rate according to the type of the ultrasound probe specified by the setting,
Compression means for compressing the image data at the set compression rate;
An ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus comprising: recording means for recording image data compressed by the compression means .

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