AN INTELLIGENT INTERFACE FOR FREEHAND STRAIN IMAGING
Joel E. Lindop, Graham M. Treece, Andrew H. Gee and Richard W. Prager
May 2007
We present a new, intelligent interface for freehand strain imaging, which has been designed to support clinical trials investigating the potential of ultrasonic strain imaging for diagnostic purposes across a broad range of target pathologies. The aim with this interface is to make scanning easier, and to help clinicians learn the necessary scanning technique quickly, by providing real time feedback indicating the quality of the strain data as they are produced. The images are also easier to interpret, because data at unacceptably low signal-to-noise ratios do not reach the display. Overall, the interface also considerably reduces the difficulty in producing volumes of strai n data from freehand 3D scans. Its main components are novel normalisation, persistence and display methods. These not only present data in a more meaningful format, but the level of noise in the displayed images is actually reduced compared to other methods that use the same strain estimates with the same level of persistence.
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