JP4165338B2 - Ultrasonic diagnostic equipment - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention relates to an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus used for medical diagnosis, and more particularly to an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus that displays an ultrasonic moving image on a remote side via a network.

  The ultrasonic diagnostic device enters an ultrasonic beam into a subject (the body of the examinee) via a probe (ultrasound transducer), receives the reflected wave with the probe, and processes the received signal By doing so, a tomographic image inside the body is obtained, or an image representing the velocity of blood flow or the like is drawn using the Doppler phenomenon, and it is widely used for medical diagnosis. Usually, an ultrasonic image is captured and displayed as a moving image, and medical diagnosis is performed by observing the image.

  A conventional ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus is generally provided with a freeze function for stopping an ultrasonic image displayed as a moving image at an appropriate timing. When a freeze button or the like on the operation panel is operated, the ultrasonic moving image at that time is frozen and displayed as a still image. In addition, when there is a previous image memory called cine memory that always stores image data for several frames immediately before the currently captured and displayed image, the timing for pressing the freeze button is delayed. Some have a function of displaying a moving image as a still image at the time of going back in the past by reading from the cine memory.

  In addition, it has also been conventionally performed to transmit a photographed ultrasonic moving image via a network and display it on the remote side for diagnosis. In this case, lossy compression methods such as MPEG2 and MPEG4, which are compression methods for moving image data, are often used due to network bandwidth limitations, and the compressed and encoded moving image data is decoded and restored at the distribution destination. And display it.

  However, when an ultrasonic moving image is distributed through a network and observed and diagnosed at a network delivery destination, that is, a remote side, basically, the moving image is displayed in a so-called dripping state, and the remote side However, it is a normal configuration that the moving image cannot be stopped at an appropriate time, and the inconvenience when observing the ultrasonic image on the remote side is felt.

  Therefore, a freeze command is input by an operation on the remote side, the command is sent to the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus on the main unit side via the network, and the freeze operation is performed in the same manner as when the freeze operation is performed on the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus on the main unit side. It is conceivable to do this. However, in this case, due to the accumulation of each element such as a transmission delay in the network, a delay due to a jitter absorbing buffer of a packet in moving image transfer, or a delay due to an encoding process in GOP (Group of Picture) units such as MPEG2. A large delay is inevitable. Therefore, even if the freeze operation is performed at the timing that seems to be necessary while observing on the remote side, the moving image will be stationary several frames after the frame that seems to be necessary. When observing intense organs, the necessary time phase will be lost, which is very inconvenient.

  An object of the present invention is to provide an improved ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus that can freeze an ultrasonic moving image at an appropriate timing on a remote side where the ultrasonic image is distributed over a network.

  It is another object of the present invention to provide an improved ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus so that a still image can be obtained by going back several frames immediately before a freeze operation on the remote side.

  In order to achieve the above object, the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus according to the present invention comprises a main body side and a remote side connected via a network, and the main body side includes an ultrasonic moving image photographing unit, An encoder that compresses ultrasonic moving image data sequentially output from the sound image capturing unit and a network adapter that outputs encoded data after compression processing to a network are provided, and the remote side is connected to the network. A network adapter, a decoder that decodes and restores the encoded data received via the network adapter, an operation unit that inputs a freeze command, and stops the processing of the decoder in response to the freeze command. And a decoding control unit that outputs the decoded image data at that time as still image data, You have me.

  When a freeze command is input by operating the operation unit on the remote side, the decode control unit stops the processing of the decoder accordingly. As a result, the state where the decoded and restored image data of the frame at that time is output is maintained, and the image data of the still image of the frame is output. Therefore, when the operator observes an image display device or the like that displays decoded ultrasound image data and displays an ultrasonic moving image, the freeze operation is performed when the image of the frame to be frozen appears. The image is frozen and displayed as a still image. Since the freeze operation and the corresponding freeze operation are performed remotely, even if there is a delay through the network, it is possible to freeze the moving image without delay from the operation. It is.

  In addition to the above configuration, the remote side is provided with a frame information transmission unit that transmits frame information for specifying the frozen frame via a network adapter, and the main body side has an ultrasonic moving image photographing. The image data of the frame indicated by the frame information sent from the remote side, and the immediately preceding image memory in which at least several frames immediately before the current time are always stored. A redistribution processing unit that reads out from the memory, changes the compression parameters so as to improve the image quality, and compresses the image of the frame by the decoder and outputs the compressed image to the network via the network adapter; Is a feature.

  On the main unit side, ultrasonic moving image data is obtained sequentially from the ultrasonic moving image capturing unit for each frame, and images of each frame are always stored in the immediately preceding image memory for at least several frames immediately before the current frame. Has been. When the freeze operation is performed on the remote side, information specifying the frozen frame is sent to the main body side. Since the main unit side and the remote side are connected via a network, there is a delay in image data transmission, and the frame that has been frozen as the current image on the remote side is already on the main unit side several frames before the past. It has become. However, the previous immediately preceding image memory on the main body side always stores several previous previous images, and the image of the frame indicated by the frame information specifying the frame frozen on the remote side is read from the immediately preceding image memory. be able to. Therefore, the re-distribution processing unit provided on the main body side can read out from the immediately preceding image memory, and the image data of the frame can be compressed again by the decoder and distributed to the network. In this case, the image data to be compressed / transmitted is image data of one frame, and is not moving image data distribution in which the image data of each frame is sequentially transmitted. Even if image data is sent, it is within the bandwidth limit of the network. Therefore, on the remote side, it is possible to observe a higher-quality ultrasonic image of one frame designated as the one to be frozen and observed as a frozen still image.

  Even on the remote side, the target frame image can be frozen and observed without delay in operation. Furthermore, the image of the freeze-operated frame is distributed again from the main body as high-quality image data with a larger amount of information so that a higher-quality image can be observed on the remote side. Become.

  Next, an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus embodying the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

  In the embodiment shown in FIG. 1, the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus includes a main body side 10 and a remote side 30 connected via a network 20.

  The main body side 10 includes an ultrasonic imaging unit 11 to which an ultrasonic probe 12 is connected. The ultrasonic probe 12 includes an ultrasonic transducer array, is applied to a subject (a body such as a subject's abdomen), transmits an ultrasonic beam into the body, and receives a reflected wave from the inside of the body. The ultrasonic imaging unit 11 controls transmission / reception of ultrasonic waves via the ultrasonic probe 12 and creates an image by processing the obtained ultrasonic data. For example, when obtaining a fan-shaped B-mode image, a sector scan of an ultrasonic beam (fan scan) is performed by controlling the directivity angle of transmission and reception ultrasonic waves by electronic control, and the received data is processed to obtain a sector image. Create Such ultrasonic images are successively obtained, and the ultrasonic moving image data is once stored in the image memory 14 and then sent to an image display device (not shown) or the like for display.

  The operation panel 13 is used for setting the shooting mode, setting the depth / sensitivity, and the like. A signal input from the operation panel 13 is sent to the ultrasonic imaging unit 11 to set the mode. The operation panel 13 is provided with a push button for freeze operation, and a freeze command is issued to the cine memory 17 in response to this operation.

  The cine memory 17 is an image memory that always accumulates several frames immediately before the present time of the ultrasonic image data obtained for each sequential frame of the ultrasonic image capturing unit 11, and this image data is transmitted via the image memory 14. It has been. When the above freeze command is issued, the stored contents of the image memory 14 are fixed, and the ultrasonic image of the frame at that time is sent to an image display device (not shown) and displayed as a still image or stored in the cine memory 17. The previous several frames of images that have been read back are sequentially read out, sent to the image memory 14 and displayed as a still image frame by frame, and fixed to the display of an image of an arbitrary frame. It can be done.

  An operator observing an ultrasonic moving image on the main body side 10 can perform a freeze operation when an image to be viewed appears, and can observe a still image of a frame image at that time for a long time, and also freeze Even when the operation has been delayed and the image has moved from one image to another, the image is displayed as a still image one frame at a time, going back to the previous few frames, and the image you want to see appears. The image can be fixed to a still image display and the image can be observed for a long time.

  Ultrasonic moving image data sequentially output from the ultrasonic imaging unit 11 via the image memory 14 is compressed and encoded by an encoder 15 such as MPEG2 or MPEG4, and sent to the network 20 via the network adapter 16. On the remote side 30, the MPEG encoded data sent to the network adapter 31 via the network 20 is decoded and restored by the MPEG decoder 32, sent to an image display device (not shown) via the image memory 33, and supersonic waves. A wave image is displayed.

  The remote side 30 is also provided with an operation panel 34. The operation panel 34 is provided with a push button or the like for freeze operation. When this is operated, a freeze command is input to the decode control unit 35. . Then, the decode control unit 35 gives a control signal for stopping the operation of the decoder 32 to the decoder 32, and the decoder 32 immediately stops the decoding process, so that the decoded data at that time is stored in the image memory 33. The state in which the image data is fixed and sent to an image display device (not shown) is maintained, and the image of the frame is displayed as a still image.

  Further, in this embodiment, frame information specifying the frozen frame is acquired by the frame information transmission unit 36, which is sent to the network adapter 31 and sent to the main body 10 via the network 20. The information specifying the frame is, for example, the frame ID data or serial number, and is attached to the image data for each frame. Therefore, the frame information transmission unit 36 reads from the additional information of the image data of the frozen frame. Can do.

  On the main body side 10, information on the frame frozen on the remote side 30 is sent from the network adapter 16 to the redistribution processing unit 18. When the image of the frame on the remote side 30 is displayed and frozen, the main body side 10 is further advanced from that frame due to a delay in the network 20, and the latest image of the subsequent frame is obtained. However, the image data for the past several frames is stored in the cine memory 17. Therefore, the redistribution processing unit 18 searches the cine memory 17 for a frame image specified by the received information, sends the frame image to the image memory 14, and causes the encoder 15 to perform compression / encoding processing. The compression parameter at this time is changed so that a higher quality image can be restored. This control is performed by the redistribution processing unit 18. Thus, encoded data having a large amount of information is obtained from the encoder 15 as one frame of image data, which is sent to the network 16 and distributed to the remote side 30 via the network 20.

  Therefore, the remote side 30 can receive and display high-quality image data of the frozen frame image again. In this case, only the frozen one frame of image data needs to be redistributed, so that even if the amount of information is large as one frame of image data, problems such as bandwidth limitation of the network 20 do not occur. The operator on the remote side 30 can display the high-quality image of the frame that he / she freezes as a still image, and can make a diagnosis by observing the image.

  In the above description of the embodiment, each unit is expressed in hardware, but can be realized in software. In addition, specific configurations and the like can be variously changed.

  According to the present invention, in an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus capable of observing an ultrasonic moving image even on a remote side by distributing ultrasonic moving images over the network, the remote side can perform regardless of the data transmission delay in the network. Can freeze the ultrasonic moving image at a desired timing. Further, the image data of the frame frozen on the remote side can be distributed again as high-quality image data from the main body side to the remote side, and the image of the frozen frame can be displayed as a high-quality image on the remote side.

The block diagram which shows one Example of this invention.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 10 Main body side of ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus 11 Ultrasonic imaging part 12 Ultrasonic probe 13, 34 Operation panel 14, 33 Image memory 15 MPEG encoder 16, 31 Network adapter 17 Cine memory 18 Redistribution processing part 20 Network 30 Ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus Remote side 32 MPEG decoder 35 Decode control unit 36 Frame information transmission unit

Claims (2)

  The main body side has a main body side and a remote side connected via a network, and the main body side compresses ultrasonic moving image data sequentially output from the ultrasonic moving image photographing unit and the ultrasonic moving image photographing unit. An encoder and a network adapter that outputs encoded data after compression processing to a network. The remote side decodes the encoded data received via the network adapter connected to the network and the network adapter. A decoder for restoration processing; an operation unit for inputting a freeze command; and a decode control unit for stopping the processing of the decoder according to the freeze command and outputting the decoded image data at that time as still image data. An ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus characterized by the above.   The remote side further includes a frame information transmission unit that transmits frame information for specifying the frozen frame via the network adapter, and the main body side sequentially outputs ultrasonic moving image data from the ultrasonic moving image photographing unit. Is read from the immediately preceding image memory and the immediately preceding image memory that always stores at least several frames immediately before the current time and the frame information indicated by the frame information sent from the remote side so that the image quality is improved. The ultrasonic wave according to claim 1, further comprising: a redistribution processing unit configured to compress the image of the frame by the decoder and output the compressed image to the network via a network adapter after changing the compression parameter. Diagnostic device.

Images