Prager R W, Gee A, Berman L
Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, UK.
Med Image Anal. 1999 Jun;3(2):129-40. doi: 10.1016/s1361-8415(99)80003-6.
Conventional freehand three-dimensional (3-D) ultrasound is a multi-stage process. First, the clinician scans the area of interest. Next, the ultrasound data is used to construct a 3-D voxel array, which can then be visualized by, for example, any-plane slicing. The strict separation of data acquisition and visualization disturbs the interactive nature of the ultrasound examination. Furthermore, some systems require the clinician to wait for an unacceptable amount of time while the voxel array is constructed. In this paper, we describe a novel freehand 3-D ultrasound system which allows accurate acquisition of the raw data and immediate visualization of arbitrary slices through the data. Minimal processing separates the acquisition and visualization processes: in particular, at no stage is a voxel array constructed. Instead, the standard graphics hardware found inside most desktop computers is exploited to synthesize arbitrary slices directly from the raw B-scans.
传统的徒手三维（3-D）超声是一个多阶段过程。首先，临床医生扫描感兴趣的区域。接下来，超声数据用于构建三维体素阵列，然后可以通过例如任意平面切片进行可视化。数据采集和可视化的严格分离扰乱了超声检查的交互性。此外，一些系统要求临床医生在构建体素阵列时等待过长时间。在本文中，我们描述了一种新型的徒手三维超声系统，该系统允许准确采集原始数据并通过数据立即可视化任意切片。最少的处理将采集和可视化过程分开：特别是在任何阶段都不构建体素阵列。相反，利用大多数台式计算机内部的标准图形硬件直接从原始B扫描合成任意切片。
