JPH07265314A - Ultrasonic tomographic apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To realize an ultrasonic tomographic apparatus capable of displaying the tomographic image of the arbitrary cross section of a living body within a real time. CONSTITUTION:The three-dimensional ultrasonic signal received by the electronic scanning and mechanical scanning of a probe 1 is successively applied to a phasing circuit, a detection circuit and an A/D converter to be written in a frame memory 6 and the obtained data is used to operate the brightnesses at respective coordinate points of an arbitrary cross section by an arbitrary cross section coordinates transformation means 11 provided as exclusive hardware and an arbitrary cross section 8-point interpolation means 12 to display the same on a display means 9 as the tomographic image of the arbitrary cross section.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an ultrasonic tomography apparatus used for medical examination of a living body, and more particularly to an ultrasonic tomography apparatus for obtaining a tomographic image of an arbitrary cross section in a living body.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Generally, in an ultrasonic tomographic apparatus, a probe that transmits and receives ultrasonic waves is mechanically scanned two-dimensionally, or an electronic scanning probe is used to perform one-dimensional electronic scanning and one-dimensional scanning.
Three-dimensional image information in the living body is obtained by combining with three-dimensional mechanical scanning (or rotation scanning). Then, in order to display a tomographic image of an arbitrary cross section from these three-dimensional image information, conventionally, individual ultrasonic beam information from the probe or each electronic scanning cross section information is accumulated in a memory,
Such information is transferred from the ultrasonic tomography apparatus to a workstation or a personal computer, and a tomographic image of an arbitrary cross section is formed and displayed by software calculation.

[0003]

However, when a tomographic image of an arbitrary cross section is formed by such a conventional method, three-dimensional image data is transferred from the ultrasonic tomographic apparatus to the workstation or personal computer. It takes several minutes or more to calculate the tomographic image of an arbitrary section by software. For this reason, the tomographic image of an arbitrary cross section cannot be displayed in real time, and the responsiveness to diagnosis is poor.

The present invention has been made to solve the above problems, and an object of the present invention is to provide an ultrasonic tomography apparatus capable of forming and displaying a tomographic image of an arbitrary cross section in a living body in real time.

[0005]

To achieve this object, in the present invention, the image processing section is provided with in-vivo ultrasonic three-dimensional image information obtained by electronic scanning of ultrasonic waves and mechanical scanning. A plurality of frame memories or cine memories, and further, arbitrary section coordinate conversion means for converting the coordinates of the stored three-dimensional image information and the coordinates on a desired arbitrary section in the living body; An arbitrary section 8-point interpolation means for interpolating the image information for each coordinate point of the above-mentioned accumulated 3-dimensional image information from the neighboring 8-point image information is provided. A tomographic image of the cross section is formed in real time.

[0006]

In the above-mentioned ultrasonic tomography apparatus, a plurality of frame memories or cine memories store three-dimensional image information of each electronic scanning section which is step-moved by mechanical scanning. Then, first, a desired arbitrary cross section is set in the living body, and then the display coordinate on the arbitrary cross section entered between two adjacent electronic scanning cross sections stored in the frame memory by the arbitrary cross section coordinate conversion means. The point is calculated, and the brightness of the image of the coordinate point is given as the brightness of the memory coordinate point that is closest to the coordinate point as a representative, or the adjacent electrons that surround the coordinate point on the arbitrary cross section. Read 8 points on the cross section of scan 2 from the frame memory,
By the 8-point interpolating means of the arbitrary section, the respective luminances of these 8 points,
Interpolation calculation is performed from the positional relationship between the eight points and the coordinate point on the desired arbitrary cross section, and the result is output to the image display means as the image brightness of the arbitrary cross section coordinate point.

At this time, since the arbitrary section coordinate conversion means and the arbitrary section 8-point interpolation means used are composed of dedicated hardware, it is possible to display a tomographic image of the arbitrary section in almost real time.

[0008]

1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of an embodiment of an ultrasonic tomography apparatus according to the present invention.

First, here, the probe 1 is an electronic scanning type probe, and performs linear, convex, or sector scanning electronically. Further, the mechanical scanning means 10 mechanically rotationally scans or linearly scans the probe 1 to change the position of a tomographic plane obtained by electronic scanning,
Obtain three-dimensional ultrasonic tomographic information of a living body. Next, the ultrasonic signal transmitted / received from the probe 1 by the transmission / reception circuit 2 is beam-focused by the phasing circuit 3, detected by the detection circuit 4, and further digitized by the A / D converter 5. , Are written in the frame memory 6.

First, when displaying a normal tomographic image,
The electronic scanning coordinate conversion means 7 causes the TV display coordinates (x,
2) is converted into an ultrasonic scanning cross-section coordinate system (γ, θ), and FIG.
As shown in (a), ultrasonic data A, B, C, D at positions surrounding the TV display point P (x, y) are read from the frame memory 6, and P and A are obtained by the scanning section four-point interpolation means 8. ，
P by weighted addition corresponding to the distances of B, C and D
The brightness of (x, y) is calculated and sent to the image display means 9 for display.

Next, when displaying a tomographic image of an arbitrary cross section, ultrasonic data of a plurality of tomographic planes obtained by electronic scanning and mechanical scanning are written in the frame memory 6,
A parameter indicating a three-dimensional position of an electronic scanning cross section with respect to a certain fixed coordinate and a parameter indicating a three-dimensional position of an arbitrary cross section are input to the arbitrary section coordinate conversion means 11, and ultrasonic waves with respect to display coordinates (u, v) of the arbitrary section are input. Scanning section coordinates (γ,
θ) is output, and as shown in FIG. 2B, the TV display point Q
8 points on two ultrasonic scanning cross sections surrounding (u, v), A,
B, C, D, A ', B', C ', D'are read from the two frame memories 6, and an arbitrary section 8-point interpolating means 12 is used for Q and A, B, C, D, A', B '. , C ′, D ′ are weighted and added to calculate the brightness of Q (u, v) and displayed on the image display means 9.

Here, the electronic scanning coordinate conversion means 7 and the arbitrary section coordinate conversion means 11 are composed of dedicated hardware such as a DSP (digital signal processor), a ROM, a polar coordinate converter, and a product-sum calculator. The above calculation can be performed at high speed. Further, since both the 4-point interpolating means 8 and the 8-point interpolating means 12 are configured by dedicated hardware for product-sum calculation, the above-mentioned interpolation processing can be performed at high speed. Therefore, a tomographic image of an arbitrary cross section can be displayed in real time.

In addition, in FIG. 1, instead of the frame memory 6, image information of ultrasonic scanning cross sections of a large number of planes is stored in a cine memory (not shown), and the cine memory is continuously read out later, so that an arbitrary cross section can be obtained. It is also possible to display a tomographic image of.

[0014]

As described above, in the ultrasonic tomography apparatus according to the present invention, a tomographic image of an arbitrary cross section of a living body or the like can be formed and displayed in real time by dedicated hardware. It can be used for diagnosis and the like with high responsiveness and efficiency.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of an ultrasonic tomography apparatus according to the present invention.

2A and 2B are diagrams showing a method for calculating a display luminance of a tomographic image on an arbitrary section according to the present invention, wherein FIG. 2A is a 4-point scanning section interpolation method, and FIG. 2B is an 8-point arbitrary section interpolation method. is there.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Probe 2 ... Transmission / reception circuit 3 ... Phasing circuit 4 ... Detection circuit 5 ... A / D converter 6 ... Frame memory 7 ... Electronic scanning coordinate conversion means 8 ... Scan cross section 4-point interpolation means 9 ... Display means 10 ... Mechanical scanning means 11 ... Arbitrary section coordinate conversion means 12 ... Arbitrary section 8-point interpolation means

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. An ultrasonic tomography apparatus for forming a tomographic image of an arbitrary cross section in a living body from three-dimensional image information in the living body obtained by transmitting and receiving ultrasonic waves in the living body by electronic scanning and mechanical scanning. The image processing unit of the tomographic apparatus is provided with a plurality of frame memories or cine memories to accumulate the three-dimensional image information in the living body, and further, coordinates of the accumulated three-dimensional image information and a desired arbitrary cross section in the living body. Arbitrary cross-section coordinate conversion means for converting the above coordinates, and arbitrary cross-section created by interpolating image information for each coordinate point on the arbitrary cross-section from the image information of 8 points of the stored three-dimensional image information that are close to each other. An ultrasonic tomography apparatus comprising: an 8-point interpolation means.