3D ultrasound imaging with echocardiogram and a 3D positioner

This paper describes a three-dimensional (3D) ultrasound (US) imaging system, where a commercial ultrasound diagnostic device is used to obtain the coordinates of an US probe and a 3D positioner is used to obtain an US B-mode image. In this system, the B-mode image was projected on a virtual 3D space in a workstation through a transformation matrix and the algorithm for 3D image reconstruction in real time. To evaluate the ability of this system, the authors performed a phantom experiment. The result indicates that the system has the sufficient ability to reconstruct a 3D image of human organs and the availability for intraoperative ultrasonography.