Abstract: Subtle changes in heart wall motion which may be symptomatic of coronary disease states are more easily discerned by acquiring a real time sequence of ultrasonic diagnostic images. An image acquired at a predetermined point in the cardiac cycle, such as the end diastole image, is chosen as a mask image, and the heart wall in the mask image is colored a first color. The heart wall in the remaining images in the sequence is colored a second, contrasting color. The contrasting images are then successively displayed in overlapping alignment with a static display of the mask images Abnormalities in heart wall motion are more easily discerned by the relative motion between the contrasting image sequence and the mask image.