JPH0614933B2 - Ultrasonic diagnostic equipment - Google Patents

Description

Description: FIELD OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to an ultrasound diagnostic apparatus, and more particularly to improving the averaging of its images.

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, an averaging operation has been performed as a method of reducing noise in an ultrasonic image. This is to perform an averaging operation on each of the corresponding scanning lines when images of a large number of frames are obtained, and is called frame averaging because the averaging operation is performed for each frame. That is, as shown in FIG. 2, when displaying one image with N scanning lines, ..., An ultrasonic beam having directivity corresponding to each scanning line is ...
, Are sequentially transmitted, received with the same receiving directivity as the transmitting directivity, and received signals are obtained in the order of ,, ..., thereby being represented by N scanning lines. Obtain an image of one frame. Then, when images are sequentially acquired for each frame, the received signals on the same scanning line obtained for each frame (that is, the received signal in one frame and the subsequent frames in the next frame) The same is applied to the received signals in (2), ...

DISCLOSURE OF THE INVENTION Problems to be Solved by the Invention However, in the above-described conventional frame averaging, the intervals of the received signals to be averaged are one frame period, and therefore, when depicting an organ that moves rapidly such as a heart However, there is a drawback that the image is blurred.

An object of the present invention is to provide an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus capable of performing image averaging processing for noise reduction while preventing an image from blurring even in the case of a fast-moving subject.

Means for Solving the Problems An ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus according to the present invention includes a wave transmission circuit that sequentially transmits a large number of ultrasonic beams so that a large number of ultrasonic beams are sequentially scanned adjacent to each other, and a single wave transmission circuit. Two receiving circuits with two receiving directivities, which are deviated from each other by a small amount on both sides with respect to the beam directivity, and two adjacent transmitting circuits obtained by these receiving circuits. An average processing circuit that obtains data located between adjacent transmission beams by averaging two data located between these transmission beams among the four reception data of the wave beams, and And an image display device for displaying the data obtained as being located between the respective adjacent transmission beams at a position corresponding to the data.

From each of the two receiving circuits of operation, the reception data with two reception directivities deviated from each other by a small amount on both sides with respect to the directivity of one transmission beam is obtained. When a large number of transmission beams are transmitted to form one frame image, two reception data are obtained for each transmission beam, and four reception data are obtained for adjacent transmission beams. can get. Among the four reception data of the adjacent transmission beams, the averaging operation is performed on the two reception data located between the transmission beams. Since the averaging operation is performed within one frame in this way, blurring of the image does not occur even when the subject moves fast.

Embodiment In FIG. 1, a probe 2 is in close contact with a subject (patient body) 1, a drive pulse is sent from a transmitting circuit 3, and an ultrasonic beam, ... Sequentially transmitted. The reflected wave reflected in the subject 1 is received by the probe 2, and the reflected wave signal passes through the reception amplifier 4 and
Two receiving and phasing circuits 5 and 6 and two A / D converters 7 and 8
And are sent to the two receiving circuits each of which is a combination of. The wave receiving and phasing circuits 5 and 6 are set so that the wave receiving directivity deviates from the directivity of the transmission beam, ... That is, the wave receiving and phasing circuit 5 has a wave receiving directivity with respect to the transmitted beam that is deviated to the left by a slight amount, such as “to” and “to”, while , The wave phasing circuit 6 receives the directivity of the transmitted beam,
The receiving directivity is deviated to the right by a slight amount as in the case of "".
Reference numeral 8 is for quantizing the outputs of the wave receiving and phasing circuits 5 and 6. The data output from these A / D converters 7 and 8 passes through the averaging circuit 9 and the image memory 1
The data stored in 0 and subjected to the averaging process is sent to the CRT display device 11 via the image memory 10.

Here, the averaging process is performed as follows. First, by the first transmission of the ultrasonic beam, two wave reception data, that is, the wave reception data respectively corresponding to the wave receiving directivities ′ and ″ are obtained from the wave rectifying circuits 5 and 6, and these are A / The image data is stored as it is in the image memory 10 through the D converters 7 and 8 and the averaging circuit 9. Next, by receiving the ultrasonic beam, the received data corresponding to the receiving directivity ′ ″ is obtained. Then, the reception data having the above reception directivity "is read from the image memory 10, and this and the reception data having the reception directivity 'are averaged by the averaging circuit 9 to obtain the reception directivity". The received wave data is written in the address where it was stored, and the received wave data of the received wave directivity "is stored in the image memory 10 as it is. Further, by the transmission of the ultrasonic beam, the received wave directivity ' ,
When the reception data corresponding to each of "", the reception data of the previous reception directivity "is read from the image memory 10, and this and the reception data of the reception directivity 'are averaged by the average processing circuit 9". Is averaged and written to the address where the reception data having the reception directivity "is stored, and the reception data having the reception directivity" is stored in the image memory 10 as it is.

In this way, each time the ultrasonic beam is transmitted, the reception data on both the left and right sides is obtained, and the averaging process between the two reception data located between the adjacent transmission beams is performed. However, it will be held one after another. Since the data obtained by the averaging process is the data between each of the transmission beams, ..., On the screen of the CRT display device 11, the scanning line corresponding to that position is ... Is displayed. In this way, the ultrasonic tomographic image, which has undergone the averaging process and whose image noise has been reduced, is displayed on the screen of the CRT display device 11.

Here, the two wave-receiving circuits are provided so that the frame rate is not reduced.

Although the linear scan has been described above, it goes without saying that the same can be applied to the sector scan.

EFFECTS OF THE INVENTION In the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus according to the present invention, the averaging operation is not performed on the data on each scanning line obtained for each frame, but the data obtained on each adjacent scanning line is averaged in one frame image. Since the processing is performed, image averaging processing for noise reduction can be performed without causing image blur even in the case of a fast-moving subject such as a heart. Further, even if there is a difference in sensitivity between the receiving circuits provided in the two systems, the difference in sensitivity can be corrected by a simple process such as averaging.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a diagram of scanning lines for explaining a conventional example. 1 ... Subject, 2 ... Probe, 3 ... Transmitting circuit, 4 ...
Receiving amplifier, 5, 6 ... Receiving wave phasing circuit, 7, 8 ... A /
D converter, 9 ... Average processing circuit, 10 ... Image memory, 11 ... CRT display device

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A wave transmission circuit for sequentially transmitting a large number of ultrasonic beams so that a plurality of ultrasonic beams are sequentially scanned at adjacent positions, and a minute amount on each side with respect to the directivity of one transmission beam. Of the two receiving circuits with two receiving directivities deviated from each other and the four receiving data of the two adjacent transmitting beams obtained by these receiving circuits. An averaging circuit that obtains data located between adjacent transmission waves by averaging two data located between the transmission beams, and an averaging circuit located between these adjacent transmission beams. An ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus comprising: an image display device that displays the obtained data at a position corresponding thereto.