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Abstract

A method and apparatus is provided for generating a spatially compounded ultrasonic image using an image registration method (IR-SC). In the image registration method, a current image frame is correlated with a previously generated IR-SC image in order to derive the transducer motion information for IR-SC image generation. Specifically, the current image frame is divided into several smaller sub-frame regions, and a very fast and robust image motion detection algorithm is utilized to measure the sub-frame motion. This algorithm uses a fast adaptive coarse/fine minimum-sum-absolute-difference (MSAD) search strategy to compute an initial estimation of the local motion vectors. The initial estimation is combined with two measurement parameters by use of a fuzzy logic technique to derive a final estimation of the local motion vectors. The final local motion vectors are applied to a least-squares (L-S) process in order to estimate global image motion. Based on the global image motion information, the current image frame is transformed geometrically to coincide with the previously compounded IR-SC image frame. Once transformed, the current image frame is compounded with the previously compounded image frame to provide a new IR-SC image. Finally, a fast display technique generates and displays the IR-SC image.

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