JPH0691884B2 - Ultrasonic diagnostic equipment - Google Patents

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD The present invention relates to an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus, and more particularly to an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus having an A mode and an M mode.

[Prior Art] In the A mode display, the echo intensity at each point on the ultrasonic beam is displayed as a waveform corresponding to the amplitude. That is, one of the two orthogonal coordinate axes indicates the time axis related to ultrasonic wave propagation, and the other axis indicates the size of the echo. If the speed of sound is constant, the time axis indicates the distance on the ultrasonic beam.

In the M mode display, the echo intensity on the ultrasonic beam is represented by the intensity (luminance) of the bright spot, and one of two orthogonal coordinate axes is a time axis related to the ultrasonic wave propagation time (an axis indicating a distance on the ultrasonic beam). ), And the other axis is the time axis related to the sweep. According to the M mode display, the movement of the tissue on the ultrasonic beam can be expressed over time. In other words, M
The mode display is a collection of motion curves of each tissue on the ultrasonic beam.

When the M mode display is performed, the A mode display in a predetermined time phase is often performed accordingly.

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] However, conventionally, in the case of performing two displays at the same time, it was necessary to provide an A mode memory in addition to the M mode memory. Therefore, the memory capacity is increased, which is wasteful.

Also, in the control system, two memory control circuits corresponding to each memory are required, which makes the circuit complicated.

Therefore, the applicant has proposed an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus that creates an A mode image from an M mode image in order to simplify the control system and reduce the memory capacity.
That is, this ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus has a display memory for storing the M-mode image, and when reading the M-mode image from the display memory, each luminance value of the M-mode image is converted into a waveform amplitude value. Forming a mode image.

As a result, it is possible to display the M-mode image stored in the display memory and the A-mode information of the M-mode image at a predetermined time phase individually or simultaneously in real time.

However, in this conventional apparatus, the A mode image displayed on a television monitor or the like could not obtain high resolution as shown in FIG.

That is, normally, when the waveform of each mode is displayed as an image on a television monitor or the like, as shown in FIG. 4, both the first field scanning (odd number scanning) and the second field scanning (even number scanning) are performed as interlaced scanning. Although scanning is being performed, the A mode information is position information (amplitude point) of 1 in 1 display scanning line.
I only had information for pixels.

Therefore, for each field, ie each display scan line,
Only one pixel can be displayed, each display pixel (amplitude position) is discrete in the display scanning line direction, sufficient resolution cannot be obtained, and waveform recognition is difficult.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of the above-described conventional problems, and an object of the present invention is to provide an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus capable of continuously improving the resolution by forming a waveform when an A mode image is formed from an M mode image. To provide.

[Means for Solving the Problems] In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides an M-mode image in which the size of an echo on an ultrasonic beam is represented by a brightness value,
An A-mode image in which the size of an echo on an ultrasonic beam is represented by an amplitude value of a waveform, and an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus displayed on a display, the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus including a first field memory and a second field memory, An interlaced scanning memory in which image information forming the M-mode image is stored in the memories while being alternately distributed according to the interlaced scanning in the display device,
A brightness / position conversion circuit for converting the brightness value of the M-mode image output from the interlaced scanning memory for each display scanning line into the amplitude position of the A-mode waveform to form the A-mode image; A circuit that interpolates, for each display scan line, an A-mode image output from the position conversion circuit, from the amplitude position on the display scan line that is the interpolation target to the vicinity of the amplitude position on the adjacent display scan line. And an interpolating circuit that interpolates along the display scanning line that is the subject of interpolation, and the interpolated A-mode image is displayed on the display.

[Operation] According to the above configuration, the M-mode image is stored in the first field memory and the second field memory of the interlaced scanning memory. The M-mode image read from these memories is input to the brightness / position conversion circuit, and the brightness value of the M-mode image is converted into an amplitude position to form an A-mode image.

Then, the interpolation circuit performs interpolation on the A-mode image from the amplitude position to the vicinity of the adjacent amplitude position on the display scanning line to be interpolated.

Therefore, in one display scanning line, not only one point is displayed, but the process of making the waveform continuous considering the adjacent amplitude positions is executed, so that the A-mode waveform can be smoothed. , The apparent resolution can be improved.

As described above, the interpolation process only needs to consider the adjacent display scanning lines and is executed along the display scanning lines, so that there is an advantage that the interpolation process can be simplified.

[Embodiment] A preferred embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the circuit block diagram of FIG. 1 and FIG.

In FIG. 1, an A / D converter 10 converts an analog reception signal into a digital reception signal. A / D
Since the configuration before the converter 10 is the same as the conventional configuration,
Illustration is omitted.

M mode information display memory (hereinafter referred to as display memory) 12
Is a memory for storing the M-mode image information output from the A / D converter 10. In the display memory 12, in order to display an image on a television monitor or the like, image information is divided into a first field and a second field in correspondence with interlaced scanning (interlaced scanning) and stored independently of each other.

The M-mode information memory control circuit (hereinafter referred to as memory control circuit) 14 outputs the digital signal output from the A / D converter 10 to 1
It is a control circuit for writing / reading to / from the display memory 12 in pixel units.

Specifically, the control is performed by writing / writing the display memory 12.
This is performed by outputting the write enable signal 14a to the read address terminal. Further, as described later, the control signal 14c for controlling the conversion from the brightness information to the amplitude position information is output.

The brightness / position information conversion circuit (hereinafter referred to as conversion circuit) 16
The image information stored in the display memory 12 is read out for each display scanning line, converted into amplitude position information, and an A mode image is output.

The conversion address generation circuit 18 generates a conversion address referred to when the conversion circuit 16 converts the luminance value of the image into an address in the horizontal scanning direction of the television image.

The latch 20 temporarily latches the inputted amplitude position information and delays it by one horizontal scanning period (one display scanning line).

The switching circuit 13 is a circuit for switching and outputting the image information of the first field and the second field.

Further, the switching circuit 22 relates to the image information of the second field, the information of the current display scanning line, the information of one scanning line before,
Is switched and output.

An A-mode interpolation circuit (hereinafter, referred to as an interpolation circuit) 24 converts the waveform in the A-mode image output from the conversion circuit 16 into a continuous waveform by interpolation which will be described in detail later.

The adder circuit 26 adds the M-mode image output from the switching circuit 13,
An interpolated A-mode image output by the interpolation circuit 24;
Are combined as one image.

The D / A converter 28 converts the digital signal output from the adder circuit 26 into an analog signal.

The television monitor 30 is a display device for displaying an A mode image and an M mode image.

Next, the operation of the circuit shown in FIG. 1 will be described with reference to FIGS. 2 and 3.

In FIG. 1, a reception signal obtained by transmitting and receiving ultrasonic waves is subjected to predetermined processing to become image information (M mode image information), which is converted into a digital signal by the A / D converter 10. , Are stored in the display memory 12 under the write control of the memory control circuit 14.

Here, in response to the interlaced scanning on the display device 30, the image information is separately stored in the first field and the second field according to the write command of the write enable signal 14a.

For example, among the respective data forming the data sequence for one ultrasonic beam, the first, third, fifth, ... data corresponding to the image information of the scanning lines 1, 3, 5, ... Are stored in the first field. The second, fourth, and sixth data stored in the area and corresponding to the image information of the display scanning lines 2, 4, 6, ... Are stored in the second field storage area.

Then, the image information (luminance information) stored in the display memory 12 is sent to the display 30 via the switching circuit 13, the adding circuit 26 and the D / A converter 28 for displaying the M mode image. As a result, the M mode image is displayed.

The switching circuit 13 switches between the image information of the first field and the image information of the second field according to the interlaced scanning.

To obtain the A-mode image, the M-mode image information for two fields stored in the display memory 12 is read and the brightness value thereof is converted into the amplitude position of the waveform.

That is, according to the control signal 14c output from the memory control circuit 14, the M mode information 12a, 1 on two adjacent display scan lines is generated.
2b is simultaneously read from each field storage area and input to the conversion circuit 16. That is, the image information of the display scanning lines of adjacent numbers is read simultaneously, for example, the image information of the first display scanning line and the image information of the second display scanning line are read simultaneously, and then the third The image information of the display scanning line and the image information of the fourth display scanning line are read simultaneously. The reading for each pair is sequentially executed. In addition,
As will be described later with reference to FIG. 2, each pair is read once for displaying the first field and for displaying the second field for interpolation processing. Then, the waveform display position on the display scan line is specified based on the conversion address generated by the conversion address generation circuit 18 from the brightness values indicated by the input first and second field information 12a and 12b.

Next, the interpolation operation will be described with reference to FIG. Third
In the figure, the information (16a, 16b) input to the interpolation circuit 24,
Information (24a) after being interpolated is shown.

In FIG. 3, the first field information 16a (, ...) And the second field information 16b (display scan lines, ...) Output from the conversion circuit 16 will be described.

First, the information 16a in the first field is directly used for the interpolation circuit 2
4 while the second field information 16b passes through the switching circuit 22 as it is and is input to the interpolation circuit 24,
Alternatively, it is input to the interpolation circuit 24 via the latch 20 and the switching circuit 22.

Here, when the switch position of the switching circuit 22 is C, the information on the display scanning line belonging to the first field is interpolated. Specifically, as shown in FIG.
Outputs 16a and 16b from the conversion circuit 16 are simultaneously input to the interpolation circuit 24 in pairs of ...

As a result, interpolation is performed as in 1 ', as in 3', and as in 5 '.

On the other hand, when the switch position of the switching circuit 22 is D, the second
Information on the display scan line belonging to the field is interpolated. In this case, as shown in FIG.
Only the output 16b is input to the interpolation circuit 24 via the latch.

That is, when 16a and 16b are simultaneously output as, for example, 16b are input to the latch 20 and delayed by one scanning line. Therefore, the input of the A mode interpolation circuit 24 is
Only the first is entered (in this case no interpolation is done).

Then, at the next timing, 16b of 16b is input to the latch 20 at the same time as, but delayed by one scanning line. Therefore, the pair of becomes as described above,
Is input to the interpolation circuit 24.

Thus, in the A-mode interpolation circuit 24, as shown in FIG. 2, interpolation processing is performed for each pair of ,,, ..., As in 2 ', as in 4', as in 6 '. Then, the interpolation processing is performed.

Here, in the interpolation circuit 24, the magnitude relationship between two pieces of input information is compared to obtain a display position to be interpolated.
For example, in the switch position C of the switching circuit 22 shown in FIG. 3, when the information of 1'is obtained from the pair of and, only the difference between the line and the line and the information for one pixel are interpolated. The pixel of (1 information ≤ output ≤ 2
The area of the information of (1) will be illuminated), and as a result, all pixels for 1'line will be illuminated as shown in FIG.

Similarly, as shown in FIG. 2, each pair of each field of, ... And ... Is also interpolated.

After the above interpolation processing, the interpolated A mode image 24a is
It is input to the adder circuit 26 and is added to the above-mentioned M mode image 13a. Then, it is converted into an analog signal through the D / A converter 28, and the M mode image and the A mode image are displayed together on the television monitor 30. That is, in this embodiment, the A-mode image is displayed overlaid on the M-mode image as in the conventional case.

[Effects of the Invention] As described above, according to the present invention, an image (A mode image) is obtained by converting a brightness value in a brightness image into an amplitude value of a waveform.
In the case of forming, the formed waveform can be made continuous, the apparent resolution can be improved, and an image that can be easily grasped can be provided.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a circuit block diagram showing an embodiment of an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus according to the present invention, FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of interpolation processing of this embodiment, and FIG. 3 is this embodiment. FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an interpolated A-mode waveform image display state, and FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a conventional A-mode waveform image display state. 12 …… M mode information display memory 13,22 …… Switching circuit 14 …… M mode information memory control circuit 16 …… Brightness / position information conversion circuit 24 …… A mode interpolation circuit

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A display comprising an M-mode image in which the size of an echo on an ultrasonic beam is represented by a brightness value and an A-mode image in which the size of an echo on an ultrasonic beam is represented by an amplitude value of a waveform. The ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus displayed in Fig. 1 is composed of a first field memory and a second field memory, and image information forming the M-mode image is alternately stored in the memories according to the interlaced scanning in the display. An interlaced scanning memory that is stored while being distributed, and a luminance value of an M mode image output from the interlaced scanning memory for each display scanning line to form the A mode image, and an amplitude of an A mode waveform. A brightness / position conversion circuit for converting to a position and a circuit for interpolating an A-mode image output from the brightness / position conversion circuit for each display scanning line, the display being an interpolation target. An A-mode image interpolated on the display, including an interpolation circuit that performs interpolation along the display scanning line that is the interpolation target from the amplitude position on the contour line to the vicinity of the amplitude position on the adjacent display scanning line. The ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus is characterized by being displayed.