Virtual source(VS)imaging has been proposed to improve image resolution in medical ultrasound imaging.However,VS obtains a limited contrast due to the non-adaptive delay-and-sum(DAS)beamforming.To improve the image co...Virtual source(VS)imaging has been proposed to improve image resolution in medical ultrasound imaging.However,VS obtains a limited contrast due to the non-adaptive delay-and-sum(DAS)beamforming.To improve the image contrast and provide an enhanced resolution,adaptive weighting algorithms were applied in VS imaging.In this paper,we proposed an adjustable generalized coherence factor(aGCF)for the synthetic aperture sequential beamforming(SASB)ofVS imaging to improve image quality.The value of aGCF is adjusted by a sequence intensity factor(SIF)that is defined as the ratio between the effective low resolution scan lines(LRLs)intensity and total LRLs strength.The aGCF-weighted VS(aGCF-VS)images were compared with standard VS images and GCF-weighted VS(GCF-VS)images.Simulation and experimental results demonstrated that the contrast ratio(CR)and contrastto-noise ratio(CNR)of aGCF-VS are greatly improved,compared with standard VS imaging.And in comparison with GCF-VS,aGCF-VS can obtain better CNR and speckle signal-to-noise ratio(sSNR)whilemaintaining similar CR.Therefore,aGCF is suitable for VS imaging to improve contrast and preserve speckle pattern.展开更多
基金The National Natural Science Foundation of China(Grant No.62071165)the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of China(Grant No.JZ2021HGTB0074)the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation(Grant No.2021M690853).
文摘Virtual source(VS)imaging has been proposed to improve image resolution in medical ultrasound imaging.However,VS obtains a limited contrast due to the non-adaptive delay-and-sum(DAS)beamforming.To improve the image contrast and provide an enhanced resolution,adaptive weighting algorithms were applied in VS imaging.In this paper,we proposed an adjustable generalized coherence factor(aGCF)for the synthetic aperture sequential beamforming(SASB)ofVS imaging to improve image quality.The value of aGCF is adjusted by a sequence intensity factor(SIF)that is defined as the ratio between the effective low resolution scan lines(LRLs)intensity and total LRLs strength.The aGCF-weighted VS(aGCF-VS)images were compared with standard VS images and GCF-weighted VS(GCF-VS)images.Simulation and experimental results demonstrated that the contrast ratio(CR)and contrastto-noise ratio(CNR)of aGCF-VS are greatly improved,compared with standard VS imaging.And in comparison with GCF-VS,aGCF-VS can obtain better CNR and speckle signal-to-noise ratio(sSNR)whilemaintaining similar CR.Therefore,aGCF is suitable for VS imaging to improve contrast and preserve speckle pattern.
