Synthesis of panoramic views of peripheral vessels from sequences of echographic images

Echographic imaging plays a decisive role in diagnostics. However, the narrow field of view which is obtainable with an ultrasound probe can be a serious drawback. Techniques are needed to extend the field of view by reconstructing panoramic images from image sequences. In this paper the results obtained with the algorithm developed by H. Bulthof et al. are illustrated. The algorithm was used to estimate the motion of the probe between every pair of consecutive frames of echographic sequences. Subsequently, the gray level map of every single frame of the sequence was translated according to the estimated motion and added to the gray level maps of the previous frames with a mean operation. Three kinds of test sequences were used to evaluate the algorithm performances: simulated sequences, sequences of a calibration phantom and sequences of brachial arteries.