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Abstract

The disclosure is directed to an apparatus and method for producing a three-dimensional image representation of a body. The body can be animate or inanimate; i.e. the invention can be used to obtain 3D image representations of for example, parts of the human body or any object that one wishes to view or measure. The 3D image representations can be used to produce 2D displays of sections, contours, etc., or displays having 3D perspective, such as wire-frame type illustrations. This facilitates automatic computation of areas or volumes. In a disclosed embodiment, an ultrasonic imaging subsystem is provided for producing signals representative of two-dimensional images of sections of the body, the subsystem including a scanning transducer that is moveable to determine the section of the body to be imaged. The image representative signals are stored as arrays of digital pixel values. A three-dimensional acoustic digitizer subsystem is provided for deriving and storing information representative of the position and orientation of the transducer during the scanning of an associated section of the body. A voxel space storage is provided for storing a three-dimensional array of voxel values. The arrays of digital pixel values are projected into the voxel space storage, the voxel locations which correspond to projected pixel locations of a given pixel array being determined as a function of the stored position and orientation information associated with the section of the body from which the given pixel array was obtained.

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First Claim