METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR NON-INVASIVE ULTRASONIC IMAGING OF HARD TISSUE

摘要

A method for non-invasive ultrasonic imaging of hard tissue, including the steps of scanning the biological tissue with ultrasonic energy transmitted from and received at a plurality of known transmittal and reception locations about the biological tissue, to obtain a corresponding plurality of sets of digital data (110), and processing the sets of digital data to produce an image of a cross-section of the biological tissue. A corresponding apparatus (100) includes means for scanning the biological tissue with ultrasonic energy from a plurality of transmittal and reception locations about the biological tissue, means (102) for determining the transmittal and reception locations, means for generating a plurality of sets of digital data (110), the sets of digital data representing parameters of the ultrasonic energy at each of the plurality of transmittal and reception locations, and means for processing the plurality of sets of digital data to produce a cross-sectional image of the biological tissue.