Velocity field estimation, or motion tracking, is the key to characterizing tissue function in ultrasound imaging. Current velocity field estimation remains challenging in cross-range motion tracking due to the less sensitivity of ultrasound in this dimension. In addition, there is a lack of a uniform framework for different imaging schemes, such as linear array with rectangular scanning, phased array with sector scanning, and matrix array with volumetric scanning. This paper proposes a uniform multi-mode fused framework for tissue velocity field estimation. This framework integrates multiple modes of pair-wise optical flows, Doppler, and speckle consistency in ultrasound to improve the accuracy of cross-range velocity estimation. Furthermore, the uniform framework is adapted to different arrays and imaging schemes for various application scenarios. Extensive in-silico experiments on homemade and public datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed framework and the outperformance of our method when compared with a window-based method and an energy function optimization-based method. Particularly, our method improves the accuracy of cross-range velocity estimation by 8.84%, 19.21%, and 10.94% in three cross-sectional views of the public cardiac dataset when compared with the energy function optimization-based method.

错误:搜索内容不能为空,请输入英文关键词
错误:关键词超出字数限制,请精简
高级检索

A Uniform Multi-mode Fused Framework for Velocity Field Estimation in Ultrasound Imaging

  • Hailong Li,
  • Liansheng Wang,
  • Yinran Chen

摘要

Velocity field estimation, or motion tracking, is the key to characterizing tissue function in ultrasound imaging. Current velocity field estimation remains challenging in cross-range motion tracking due to the less sensitivity of ultrasound in this dimension. In addition, there is a lack of a uniform framework for different imaging schemes, such as linear array with rectangular scanning, phased array with sector scanning, and matrix array with volumetric scanning. This paper proposes a uniform multi-mode fused framework for tissue velocity field estimation. This framework integrates multiple modes of pair-wise optical flows, Doppler, and speckle consistency in ultrasound to improve the accuracy of cross-range velocity estimation. Furthermore, the uniform framework is adapted to different arrays and imaging schemes for various application scenarios. Extensive in-silico experiments on homemade and public datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed framework and the outperformance of our method when compared with a window-based method and an energy function optimization-based method. Particularly, our method improves the accuracy of cross-range velocity estimation by 8.84%, 19.21%, and 10.94% in three cross-sectional views of the public cardiac dataset when compared with the energy function optimization-based method.