Volume imaging of soft tissues with ultrasound

Acquiring and displaying 3D (volume) sets of ultrasound (US) data raises a number of interesting questions of both principle and practice. Some of these relate quite widely to soft tissue imaging in general, others such as the problem of what to do about `speckle´, are more specific to US. The practical problems are such that US has lagged very far behind techniques such as CT and MRI in establishing the practical utility of 3D visualisation. The author addresses some general questions in 3D imaging, which are well illustrated by some fairly new examples of US volume reconstructions, and on solutions to some of the practical problems. Some clinical results with 3D US justify the effort