JPH0763469B2 - Ultrasonic diagnostic equipment - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION (a) Field of Industrial Application The present invention is used in the field of medical diagnostic imaging or ultrasonic diagnostic imaging.

The present invention relates to an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus, and more particularly to an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus in which improved digital image processing of echo signals is performed.

(B) Prior art In the case of an ultrasonic image, the number of pixels of the image itself is essentially small, and this defect is a principle caused by the slow sound speed.

In order to improve real-time performance in an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus including a digital scan converter, ultrasonic image data is digitized, and various kinds of image processing are performed at the time of writing to and reading from a memory in the converter.

(C) Problems to be solved by the invention For example, in the case of displaying a sector scan image (hereinafter, simply referred to as “sector image”), the entire sector area is extracted from ultrasonic data that only extracts the contour or frame of the sector image. In order to create data so that there is no missing pixel in the pixel, that is, in order to interpolate the missing data, in detail, as shown on the left side of FIG. 3, only the data on the line can be obtained in the memory. There is a disadvantage that it is necessary to interpolate the data between adjacent line images, and many ROMs having a plurality of address information and weight information must be prepared.

Also, in displaying a linear scan image (hereinafter, simply referred to as “linear image”), since the television image scan is performed using the memory illustrated in the left side of FIG. The number of addresses in that memory is larger than the number, and ultrasonic data is stored in random locations on the memory,
It is pointed out that the memory is not used effectively.

An object of the present invention is to provide an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus capable of displaying an ultrasonic image with a sufficient number of pixels for display such as television scanning, and effectively utilizing a memory for image processing at that time.

(D) Means for Solving Problems The above-mentioned purpose is to digitize an echo signal or image data, add an attribute relating to scanning of the signal, and a sign bit indicating whether or not the data is actual sampling data. A frame memory for storing data, an interpolation circuit for sequentially reading data from the memory and taking in only image data, and an interpolation control for generating an interpolation parameter by a sign bit separated from the read data and outputting it to the interpolation circuit. It is achieved by including a generating circuit.

(E) Action The frame memory has the same number of addresses as the number of pixels required for television scanning, and although the echo signal is smaller than this number of pixels, it shows the attributes related to scanning of that signal when writing to that memory. It is written by adding a sign bit and expanding to the same number of pixels. The reading is performed based on the synchronizing signal of the television, in which case the sine bit is separated to create the interpolation parameter, the interpolation calculation is performed on the echo signal, and the result is displayed in real time.

(F) Embodiment A preferred embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 2 illustrates the bit structure of data stored in the frame memory according to the present invention.

The echo signal or image data is 6 bits D0 to D5 and the sign bit is 2 bits S0 and S1.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the essential configuration of an embodiment of the present invention.

The input data consists of 6 bits. Here, the echo signal or the image data is digitized and the data once stored in the line buffer memory (not shown) is read out.

6-bit (bit) data is the sign bit addition circuit 10
Adds a sign bit indicating the attribute of the data.
It is combined with the bit data.

For the sign bit, the value of the sign bit is determined by the control A.

The control A is connected to a specific key of an operation panel (not shown), and the operator inputs a key to identify a scanning image when scanning is not performed due to switching of the probe, or for example, to identify each scanning image for a plurality of linear scannings. To do. Fifth
Non-data in the figure indicates that scanning is not performed.

The 8-bit data is stored in the frame memory 12 in the form shown on the left side of each of FIGS. 3 and 4. The frame memory 12 has the same number of addresses as the number of pixels of a CRT (not shown).

Note that the images on the left side are obtained only as contours as shown in the figure. This is due to the essence of ultrasonic waves as described above.

The data read from the frame memory 12 is divided into sign bit (2 bits) and image data (6 bits).

For the sine bit, only the same value is extracted by the control circuit B in the identification circuit 14, and a signal required for interpolation is generated by the interpolation control generation circuit by the extracted signal.

On the other hand, upon receiving such an interpolation parameter, an interpolation operation is carried out in an interpolation circuit 18 which takes in 6 bits of image data. That is, the data or density value in the blank portion of the image shown on the left side of each of FIGS. 3 and 4 is obtained by calculation.

The output data of the interpolation circuit 18 is sent to a CRT (not shown),
For example, as shown in the right side of FIG. 3, not only the contour portion but all pixels are displayed.

By encoding the sign bit as shown in FIG. 5 and predetermining the attribute of the image data, two images (linear image a, linear image b) are stored in the frame memory 12 as illustrated on the left side of FIG. Can also be stored so that they do not overlap.

At the time of reading, either image is specified, and one image is displayed on the CRT by the right side of the figure by interpolation processing,
Alternatively, two CRTs are prepared and displayed simultaneously.

The input data shown in FIG. 2 may be the output data of the A / D converter when the echo data is digitized, instead of the read data of the line buffer memory as described above.

(G) Effect In the image processing in which a plurality of ROMs are used and the address is designated by the computer when reading and writing the frame memory, the load of the computer becomes large and the processing speed becomes slow. In the flow of echo data, image processing is performed quickly and simply through the frame memory and the interpolation circuit, and the memory is effectively used.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a main part configuration showing one embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is an exemplary diagram of a data bit configuration according to the present invention, and FIGS. 3 and 4 are relationships between a frame memory and a CRT display according to the present invention. FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram of the code of the sign bit according to the present invention. Reference numeral 10 is a sign addition circuit, 12 is a frame memory, 14 is an identification circuit, 16 is a control generation circuit for interpolation, and 18 is an interpolation circuit.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A frame memory for storing data to which an echo signal or image data is digitized, and an attribute relating to scanning of the signal and a sign bit indicating whether or not the data is actual sampling data are stored, and from the memory. It is provided with an interpolation circuit for sequentially reading data and taking in only image data, and an interpolation control generation circuit for generating an interpolation parameter by a sign bit separated from the read data and outputting it to the interpolation circuit. And ultrasonic diagnostic equipment.