Fast cardiac boundary imaging

Claim 1

A method for producing a cardiac image using a rotatable ultrasonic transducer, the steps comprising: producing a signal indicative of cardiac phase; acquiring a series of tomographic data sets as the ultrasonic transducer is continuously rotated through a range of angular orientations, each acquired tomographic data set depicting a cross-section through the subject heart at an angular orientation indicated by the ultrasonic transducer and at a cardiac phase indicated by said signal; selecting a particular cardiac phase which the cardiac image is to depict; producing a 3D image data set by selecting from said series of tomographic data sets tomographic data sets acquired at substantially the selected cardiac phase and at different transducer angular orientations; producing said cardiac image from said 3D image data set.

Claim 2

A method for producing a cardiac image using a rotatable ultrasonic transducer, the steps comprising: producing a signal indicative of cardiac phase; acquiring a series of tomographic data sets as the ultrasonic transducer is continuously rotated through a range of angular orientations, each acquired tomographic data set depicting a cross-section through the subject heart at an angular orientation indicated by the ultrasonic transducer and at a cardiac phase indicated by said signal; selecting a particular cardiac phase which the cardiac image is to depict; producing a 3D image data set by selecting from said series of tomographic data sets tomographic data sets acquired at substantially the selected cardiac phase and at different transducer angular orientations; producing said cardiac image from said 3D image data set.

Claim 3

A method for identifying the location of a cardiac cavity boundary in a 3D image data set, the steps comprising: establishing a reference database which indicates the likely location of a plurality of nodes on the cardiac cavity boundary with respect to a set of cardiac reference locations; identifying the cardiac reference locations in the 3D image data set; establishing an initial cardiac cavity boundary by interpolating between the identified cardiac reference locations in the 3D image data set; establishing regions of interest in the 3D image data set corresponding to the location of each node in the reference database; and calculating a location in each region of interest which represents the most likely location of the cardiac cavity boundary therein.

Claim 4

A method for identifying the location of a cardiac cavity boundary in a 3D image data set, the steps comprising: establishing a reference database which indicates the likely location of a plurality of nodes on the cardiac cavity boundary with respect to a set of cardiac reference locations; identifying the cardiac reference locations in the 3D image data set; establishing an initial cardiac cavity boundary by interpolating between the identified cardiac reference locations in the 3D image data set; establishing regions of interest in the 3D image data set corresponding to the location of each node in the reference database; and calculating a location in each region of interest which represents the most likely location of the cardiac cavity boundary therein.