Abstract: In a phased array ultrasound imaging system, a high quality image is obtained by a combination of line splicing and parallel receive beamforming. Two transmit pulses, one focused in the near field and one focused in the far field, are transmitted sequentially at each steering angle. The transmitted ultrasound energy is preferably focused both in azimuth and in elevation. Ultrasound echos are simultaneously received along two receive scan lines spaced angularly on opposite sides of each transmit scan line. Signals received in response to the near field and far field transmit pulses are spliced together to provide signals that represent a high quality image throughout the region of interest. Image artifacts are reduced by blending the received signals near the splice between the near field and the far field, by dynamically steering the receive scan lines to reduce the effect of line warping, and by weighted averaging of adjacent scan lines.