3D echocardiography synchronized with cardiac cycle

This paper describes a three-dimensional (3D) ultrasound (US) imaging system for beating heart. This system consists of a US diagnostic equipment, a digitizer and a computer. The probe of the US diagnostic equipment is linked with the digitizer. The US brightness-mode (B-mode) images and an electrocardiogram (ECG) are obtained by the US diagnostic equipment and the probe position is obtained by the digitizer at the same time. The cardiac cycle obtained from the ECG is divided to some periods. The B-mode images taken in a period are projected on the virtual 3D space corresponding to the period by referring to the probe positions. The repeating of display of the 3D projected images makes an image sequence of beating heart.