3-D Compounding of B-Scan Ultrasound Images

Two applications of volume registration in 3-D ultrasound imaging, extended volume imaging (EVI) and 3-D Spatial compounding, are demonstrated both in phantom and clinical scans. Extended volumes were composed by obtaining partly overlapping scans, registering the overlapping volumes, and displaying the complete set of volumes in their relative spatial orientations as determined by the registration procedure. 3-D compound images were created by scanning volumes from several elevational look directions, registering, and averaging the different views. In both applications, the volume registration worked accurately and provided significant image improvements.