Signal and image processing strategies for reconstructing 3-D color flow maps from ultrasonic data

In this paper we present techniques for the 3-D reconstruction of ultrasonic images. In previous work, we presented methods for accurately determining the velocity profile within blood vessels along single lines of sight. Measurements of two dimensional velocity profiles in parallel planes can be achieved by simply translating the transducer over a rectangular grid. Doing so we obtain a well conditioned three-dimensional data set that can be used for a 3-D color flow mapping. In this paper we consider the problems of constructing a 3-D vessel structure and velocity vector field from image slices with good geometric quality. Examples of vessel structures and blood flow field rendering for both 7.5 MHz as well as 50 MHz transducer center frequencies are presented