PC-based, low cost 3-D medical ultrasonic imaging

A 3-D medical ultrasonic imaging system which uses a 1-D array is described. The spatial position of the probe is measured by the mean of a one degree of freedom arm, using a pyramidal scanning scheme. A special hardware has been developed in order to transfer the pixel data to the microcomputer memory. The triggering of the image capture is also done by this hardware under control of the microcomputer which then reconstructs the final image in 3-D. Results obtained from a phantom formed of a puppet (as a fetus) in a tissue-mimicking phantom give realistic, very easy to understand and especially low cost 3-D images.