SPATIAL COMPOUNDING IN 3D IMAGING OF LIMBS

Effects of spatial compounding on image resolution and speckle noise a re studied. Using computer simulation, it is shown that spatial compou nding using averaged reconstruction can significantly improve lateral resolution while slightly deteriorate axial resolution. The amount of net resolution improvement depends mainly on the compound angle, but i s insensitive to the number of component images used in compounding. W hile the fact that spatial compounding can effectively reduce speckle noise is well known, the analysis in this paper indicates that to maxi mize speckle reduction, the component echo amplitudes must meet two co nditions: to be mutually independent and to have the same mean power. These findings provide useful guidelines for the analysis and optimiza tion of the performance of an ultrasound scanning system that has been specially developed for imaging residual limbs. (C) 1998 Dynamedia, I nc.