AUTOMATED 3-DIMENSIONAL US FRAME POSITIONING COMPUTED FROM ELEVATIONAL SPECKLE DECORRELATION

For ultrasonographic B-scan images collected by means of a handheld tr ansducer moving in the elevational direction, frame spacings are compu ted with a speckle-decorrelation algorithm, without additional positio ning hardware. Fully developed speckle volumes are automatically segme nted and spacing computed from the decorrelation curves. Position accu racy is within 10% for phantoms and 15% for breast studies. The algori thm provides image-based registration, which allows accurate three-dim ensional volume rendering.