• DocumentCode
    782437
  • Title

    Ultrasound three-dimensional velocity measurements by feature tracking

  • Author

    Bashford, Gregory R. ; Von Ramm, Olaf T.

  • Author_Institution
    Dept. of Biomed. Eng., Duke Univ., Durham, NC, USA
  • Volume
    43
  • Issue
    3
  • fYear
    1996
  • fDate
    5/1/1996 12:00:00 AM
  • Firstpage
    376
  • Lastpage
    384
  • Abstract
    This article describes a new angle-independent method suitable for three-dimensional (3-D) blood flow velocity measurement that tracks features of the ultrasonic speckle produced by a pulse echo system. In this method, a feature is identified and followed over time to detect motion. Other blood flow velocity measurement methods typically estimate velocity using one- (1-D) or two-dimensional (2-D) spatial and time information. Speckle decorrelation due to motion in the elevation dimension may hinder this estimate of the true 3-D blood flow velocity vector. Feature tracking is a 3-D method with the ability to measure the true blood velocity vector rather than a projection onto a line or plane. Off-line experiments using a tissue phantom and a real-time volumetric ultrasound imaging system have shown that the local maximum detected value of the speckle signal may be identified and tracked for measuring velocities typical of human blood flow. The limitations of feature tracking, including the uncertainty of the peak location and the duration of the local maxima are discussed. An analysis of the expected error using this method is given.
  • Keywords
    biomedical ultrasonics; feature extraction; haemodynamics; medical image processing; motion estimation; speckle; ultrasonic velocity measurement; angle-independent method; blood flow velocity measurement; elevation dimension; feature tracking; human blood flow; local maxima duration; off-line experiments; peak location uncertainty; pulse echo system; real-time volumetric ultrasound imaging system; tissue phantom; true blood velocity vector; ultrasonic speckle; ultrasound three-dimensional velocity measurements; Blood flow; Decorrelation; Motion detection; Motion estimation; Pulse measurements; Speckle; Two dimensional displays; Ultrasonic imaging; Ultrasonic variables measurement; Velocity measurement;
  • fLanguage
    English
  • Journal_Title
    Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control, IEEE Transactions on
  • Publisher
    ieee
  • ISSN
    0885-3010
  • Type

    jour

  • DOI
    10.1109/58.489394
  • Filename
    489394