Abstract: Methods and systems for improving an ultrasound image quality are provided. On demand transmission of unsustainably high power ultrasonic pulses are temporary or spatially interleaved with low power, zero power, or standard ultrasonic pulses. In response to a user initiated trigger, a physiological trigger, a system trigger, or external equipment trigger, the unsustainably high power pulses provide better signal-to-noise ratio and/or allow increased imaging frequencies for difficult to image patients in any of various modes, such as B-modes, harmonic B-mode responsive to tissue or contrast agent, or color flow modes. Unsustainably high power ultrasonic pulses cause an increase in the tissue temperature within the body and at the interface between the transducer and the skin. Standard imagining or standard high power pulses may increase either temperature by around 6° C., such as from a body normal 37° C. to an average of 43° C. over time.

Abstract: Methods and systems for improving an ultrasound image quality are provided. On demand transmission of unsustainably high power ultrasonic pulses are temporary or spatially interleaved with low power, zero power, or standard ultrasonic pulses. In response to a user initiated trigger, a physiological trigger, a system trigger, or external equipment trigger, the unsustainably high power pulses provide better signal-to-noise ratio and/or allow increased imaging frequencies for difficult to image patients in any of various modes, such as B-modes, harmonic B-mode responsive to tissue or contrast agent, or color flow modes. Unsustainably high power ultrasonic pulses cause an increase in the tissue temperature within the body and at the interface between the transducer and the skin. Standard imagining or standard high power pulses may increase either temperature by around 6° C., such as from a body normal 37° C. to an average of 43° C. over time.

Abstract: An image processing system according to an implementation of the invention includes a plurality of signal processing modules (210, 212, 214, 216, 218, 220, 222, 224, 226) inline in a data stream receiving signals. The signal processing modules include input multiplexers (234a-234i) adapted to control an order of or bypassing of processing by the signal processing modules. The signal processing modules may be implemented as hardware-based, nonlinear signal processing modules, such as log compress, decimation, compounding, blending, edge enhancement, automatic gain control, BHNS, lateral, or persistence filters.

Abstract: An image processing system according to an implementation of the invention includes a plurality of signal processing modules (210, 212, 214, 216, 218, 220, 222, 224, 226) inline in a data stream receiving signals. The signal processing modules include input multiplexers (234a-234i) adapted to control an order of or bypassing of processing by the signal processing modules. The signal processing modules may be implemented as hardware-based, nonlinear signal processing modules, such as log compress, decimation, compounding, blending, edge enhancement, automatic gain control, BHNS, lateral, or persistence filters.

Abstract: An ultrasonic Doppler flow (i.e. blood) imaging and/or measuring system capable of adaptively suppressing stationary or slowly-moving non-flow (i.e. tissue) signals having variable spectra from recovered ultrasonic echoes. In accordance with the invention, the tissue signals are suppressed using a tissue rejection filter having an attenuation characteristic which is controllably shaped based upon measured estimates of at least one spectral characteristic of the tissue signals to be removed, thereby maximizing the rejection of tissue movement signals and minimizing undesired attenuation of the blood flow signals. In accordance with one embodiment of the invention, the tissue rejection filter is embodied as a complex notch filter for filtering the baseband components of the recovered ultrasonic echoes, which filter has a variable notch shape and position as adaptively determined in response to changes in estimates of the spectral components of the tissue signal portion of the recovered echoes.

Abstract: An ultrasonic Doppler flow (e.g. blood) imaging and/or measuring system capable of adaptively suppressing stationary or slowly-moving non-flow (e.g. tissue) signals having variable spectra from the recovered ultrasonic echoes. In accordance with the invention, the tissue signals are suppressed using a tissue rejection filter arrangement having an attenuation characteristic which is controlled based upon measured estimates of at least one spectral characteristic of the tissue signals to be removed, thereby maximizing the rejection of tissue movement signals and minimizing undesired attenuation of the blood flow signals. In accordance with an embodiment of the invention, signal routing out of the corner-turning buffer memory component in prior art systems is advantageously modified, so as to provide during a first mode of operation, the echo signal data to a Doppler velocity processor, for forming estimates of tissue signal motion.

Abstract: An ultrasonic Doppler flow (i.e. blood) imaging and/or measuring system capable of adaptively suppressing stationary or slowly-moving non-flow (i.e. blood) signals having variable spectra from the recovered ultrasonic echoes. In accordance with the invention, the tissue signals are suppressed using a tissue rejection filter arrangement having an attenuation characteristic which is controlled based upon measured estimates of at least one spectral characteristic of the tissue signals to be removed, thereby maximizing the rejection of tissue movement signals and minimizing undesired attenuation of the blood flow signals. In accordance with an embodiment of the invention, data representative of the tissue signal movement, e.g., the spectral estimates of the tissue signals, are spatially averaged before being used to control the tissue rejection filter arrangement.

Abstract: An ultrasonic Doppler flow (i.e. blood) imaging and/or measuring system capable of adaptively suppressing stationary or slowly-moving non-flow (i.e. tissue) signals having variable spectra from recovered ultrasonic echoes. In accordance with the invention, the tissue signals are suppressed using a tissue rejection filter having an attenuation characteristic which is controllably shaped based upon measured estimates of at least one spectral characteristic of the tissue signals to be removed, thereby maximizing the rejection of tissue movement signals and minimizing undesired attenuation of the blood flow signals. In accordance with one embodiment of the invention, the tissue rejection filter is embodied as a complex notch filter for filtering the baseband components of the recovered ultrasonic echoes, which filter has a variable notch shape and position as adaptively determined in response to changes in estimates of the spectral components of the tissue signal portion of the recovered echoes.

Abstract: Method for providing a blood flow velocity display of blood flow in a blood vessel in an ultrasound imaging system by converting spectral Doppler mode data using estimates of blood flow angle and blood flow velocity.

Abstract: Method for providing a quantitative color flow display of moving matter using an ultrasound imaging system, the display being formed of pixels on a display device, which method includes the steps of: (a) transmitting acoustic beams to a region of interest in the body, which region of interest includes the moving matter; (b) receiving echo beams from the region of interest; (c) obtaining, at each portion of the region of interest, which portion is referred to as a pixel, a measure of velocity of moving matter in the pixel and a measure of direction of the velocity of the moving matter in the pixel; (d) determining a maximum of the measure of velocity at each pixel in the region of interest over a predetermined period of time and the measure of direction of the maximum velocity; and (e) displaying the measures of velocity of the pixels for the predetermined period of time wherein the measures of velocity and the measure of direction of the velocity are displayed using a color indicator which is relative to the

Abstract: An ultrasound pulsed Doppler system detects Doppler-shifted acoustic pulses reflected from moving material in a body and received by a transducer, and displays the velocity field of the material on a screen in a color flow format together with the black-and-white display of the ultrasound B-mode of the body. The system detects the average velocity of the material at a plurality of localized sample regions in the body by determining the complex correlation function for pairs of reflected signals from each sample region that are received by the transducer, where the complex phase of the correlation function is proportional to the velocity of the material, projected along the ray from the sample region to the transducer. The display constitutes an array of pixels, and the system determines a value at each pixel that represents the velocity for the material at the location imaged by the pixel.