System and method for automatically generating a series of ultrasound images each representing the same point in a physiologic periodic waveform

摘要

A system and method are provided for simplifying off-line quantification of ultrasound images by displaying a graphical user interface showing a real-time ultrasound image for enabling a user to freeze the real-time ultrasound image to display an image sequence capable of being modified and played back by the user. Upon freezing the real-time image, the graphical user interface displays a tagging system having a corresponding identification tag for each ultrasound image of the image sequence. Each tag of the tagging system records the exact point in a physiologic periodic waveform represented by the image identified by the tag using a timing reference. In order for a user to generate a modified image sequence having only ultrasound image frames representing a particular point over a plurality of physiologic periodic waveforms, the user indicates which point of the physiologic periodic waveform is desired. The system and method of the present invention then identifies using the tagging system or other means, e.g., image files or file headers, which images of the image sequence do not represent the identified point. These images are then removed leaving only frames or images, i.e., the modified image sequence, each representing the user-defined point for one of the plurality of physiologic periodic waveforms.