Three-dimensional imaging by projecting morphologically filtered pixel data

摘要

In three-dimensional imaging of ultrasound data, speckle artifact data are reduced before the acquired data from a volume of interest are projected onto an image plane. A master controller performs an algorithm that iteratively morphologically filters (28) the pixel data in a volume of interest and then iteratively projects (30,32,34) the morphologically filtered data onto a plurality of rotated image planes using a ray-casting technique. Morphological filtering is performed by stepping a seven-point kernel through a source data volume of pixel data. The kernel, made up of a central pixel value and the six pixel values adjacent to the central pixel value, is stepped through the entire source data volume. The morphological filtering operation includes at least one erosion step, which removes speckle, followed by an equal number of dilation steps, which restore the imaging data. <IMAGE>