Simulation of 3D Ultrasound with a Realistic Electro-mechanical Model of the Heart

This paper presents a first set of experiments to integrate a realistic electro-mechanical model of a beating heart into simulated real-time three-dimensional (RT3D) ultrasound data. A novel ultrasound simulation framework is presented, extended from the model of Meunier [12]. True three-dimensional transducer modeling was performed, using RT3D acquisition design. Myocardium and blood scattering parameters were defined in three dimensions. Ultrasound data sets were generated for a normal case and a pathological case, simulating left bundle branch block. Accuracy of an optical flow tracking method was evaluated on the simulated data to measure displacements on the myocardial surfaces and inside the myocardium over a cardiac cycle. The proposed simulation framework has important motivations in a cardiac modeling context as part of this project is focused on the design of effective parameter estimation methods, based on cardiac imaging.