B-Mode Ultrasound Image Simulation in Deformable 3-D Medium

Abstract

This paper presents an algorithm for fast image synthesis inside deformed volumes. Given the node displacements of a mesh and a reference 3-D image dataset of a predeformed volume, the method first maps the image pixels that need to be synthesized from the deformed configuration to the nominal predeformed configuration, where the pixel intensities are obtained easily through interpolation in the regular-grid structure of the reference voxel volume. This mapping requires the identification of the mesh element enclosing each pixel for every image frame. To accelerate this point location operation, a fast method of projecting the deformed mesh on image pixels is introduced in this paper. The method presented was implemented for ultrasound B-mode image simulation of a synthetic tissue phantom. The phantom deformation as a result of ultrasound probe motion was modeled using the finite element method. Experimental images of the phantom under deformation were then compared with the corresponding synthesized images using sum of squared differences and mutual information metrics. Both this quantitative comparison and a qualitative assessment show that realistic images can be synthesized using the proposed technique. An ultrasound examination system was also implemented to demonstrate that real-time image synthesis with the proposed technique can be successfully integrated into a haptic simulation.

Simulation of Patient-Specific Deformable Ultrasound Imaging in Real Time

“…Flach et al [5] used a FEM model around the contact areas and the known probe geometry to provide an accurate undeformed 3D volume. Similar work was developed by Goksel et al [6] to simulate B-mode images of deformable tissue. These techniques depend on the use of a priori known 3D US volumes, commonly unavailable in the context of RAPN.…”

A Real-time Ultrasound Rendering with Model-based Tissue Deformation for Needle Insertion

“…They added several post-processing effects like shadows, but did not implement tissue deformation. In (Goksel and Salcudean, 2009), they used 3D ultrasound volumes matched to a 3D elasticity model to perform a fast B-Mode ultrasound image in deformable tissues. While being realistic for obvious reasons, this class of approach imposes constraints on the model, which needs to roughly match the database and to be created for every considered joint.…”

Fast deformation of volume data using tetrahedral mesh rasterization

“…Instead, we propose a method that deforms the full volume data and allows the application of volume raycasting. More similar to our approach is the deformation method of Goksel and Salcudean [2009], who also map the deformation of a tetrahedral mesh using a texture mapping approach. However, their method to map deformed tetrahedra to voxels follows a scanline approach, and their interactive visualizations are limited to 2D images.…”