Method and apparatus for combining topographic flow power imagery with B-mode anatomical imagery

摘要

A system for imaging the velocity of scatterers flowing past slowly moving tissue, comprising: means for supplying basebanded signals derived from ultrasound reflected by the scatterers and by tissue; a color flow processor for processing said base-banded signals to output color flow signals representing estimated flow power data of the scatterers, said color flow processor comprising means for compressing said flow power data in accordance with a compression curve transfer function which is shifted away from zero input power; a B mode processor for processing said basebanded signals to output B mode signals representing the anatomical image data of the tissue; a display monitor; and means for combining said B-mode anatomical image data and said estimated flow power into a frame of image data for display on said display monitor, wherein said combining means comprises: means for two-dimensional edge-enhancing high-pass topographic filtering of said compressed flow power data; color mapping means for masking out topographic filtered flow power data within a predetermined range around zero; and means for outputting the topographic filtered flow power data which was not masked out along with B-mode anatomical image data corresponding to the masked out topographic filtered flow power data to said display monitor. 579 כ" ג בתמוז התש" ס - July 26, 2000