JPS6327704Y2 - - Google Patents

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] This invention relates to an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus that obtains B-mode ultrasonic tomographic images.

In this ultrasound diagnostic device, tomographic images are displayed on a CRT such as a TV monitor, but depending on the diagnosis area, etc.
Alternatively, if the gray level of an image can be arbitrarily converted depending on the differences in various events, it will be easier to see and more useful for diagnosis. Furthermore, this gray level conversion is necessary to provide γ correction according to the sense of the human eye, and it would be convenient if it were possible to convert between a positive image and a negative image. Incidentally, in an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus, it is common practice to store several tomographic images of different parts in a two-dimensional memory, and to display these several images simultaneously on one CRT screen. Therefore, the gray level conversion described above also applies to one of the images displayed at the same time.
It would be better if each could be done differently.

In view of the above, an object of the present invention is to provide an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus that can freely convert the gray level of each of several tomographic images displayed simultaneously on a CRT screen.

Hereinafter, an embodiment in which the present invention is applied to an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus controlled by a microcomputer will be described with reference to the drawings. In FIG. 1, a probe 1 is formed by arranging a large number of ultrasonic transducing elements, for example, and a wave transmitting/receiving circuit 2 controls the direction and position of a transmitted ultrasonic beam using a phased array method, and also controls reflected waves. The receiving directivity (direction and position) of the signal is controlled. The wave transmitting/receiving circuit 2 outputs received data (AD-converted into a digital signal) according to the magnitude of the reflected wave, and this received data passes through a DSC (digital scan converter) control circuit 3 to a RAM ( Random access memory) 4 is input as an address input. This RAM 4 has addresses corresponding to the received data. For example, if the received data has a 5-bit structure (that is, if the magnitude of the reflected wave is expressed in 32 stages), there are 32 addresses. have. Display data written in advance by the CPU (control unit) 8, which is a microcomputer, is held in each of these addresses, and as described above, when received data is input to the address input, it is held at that address. The display data that was previously displayed is read out. The display data thus read out is sent to the DSC 5. this
The DSC 5 consists of a two-dimensional memory 51 with a capacity equivalent to one display screen of the CRT 7, a RAM 52, a DA converter, and a TV output synchronization circuit 53, and stores the sent display data for one screen. It is output as a video signal synchronized with TV scanning. That is, the above-mentioned display data is sent to this two-dimensional memory 51 in units of images, and when a plurality of images are to be displayed on one screen, the data for each image is sent in a section corresponding to the display section of each image. is accumulated. The RAM 52 included in this DSC 5 converts gray levels similarly to the RAM 4, but since the conversion is of data read out from the two-dimensional memory 51, the same process is performed for the entire display screen. Perform gray level conversion. On the other hand, gray level conversion by RAM 4 is performed for each image displayed multiple times on one screen, and by changing the display data to be held in RAM 4 by CPU 8 for each image, gray level conversion is performed for each image. Different gray level transformations can be performed. The character generator 6 operates under the control of the CPU 8, and the character signal is added to the video signal at the end of gray level conversion.

By the way, when gray level conversion is not performed using RAM4, 52, depending on the size of the reflected wave,
Bright spots from white level to black level are displayed on the screen of CRT7, but if RAM 4 holds display data for each address as shown by the solid line in Figure 2, the white level part will be more visible. compressed,
A kind of γ correction can be performed. Further, if the conversion characteristics are determined as shown by the solid line in FIG. 3, no correction will be performed at all, and in the case of the dotted line in FIG. 3, black and white reversal can be performed. In the case of the dotted line in FIG. 2, γ correction can be performed simultaneously with black and white inversion. The display data to be stored in each address of RAM 4 and 52 can be arbitrarily rewritten under the control of CPU 8, and in addition to the various conversions mentioned above, a window that extracts only a specific level part can be used. It can also have functions.

In particular, since the RAM 4 converts data to be input into the two-dimensional memory 51 of the DSC 5, for example, it converts two tomographic images into two as shown in FIG.
When storing these two tomographic images in the dimensional memory 51 and displaying these two tomographic images simultaneously on the CRT 7,
It becomes possible to perform optimal gray level conversion for each individual tomographic image.

Further, since the character signal is added after the gray level conversion is completed, the characters (characters) are displayed as they are without being converted to the gray level.

As described above with respect to the embodiments, according to the present invention, even when a plurality of tomographic images are displayed simultaneously on one display screen, arbitrary gray level conversion can be performed for each tomographic image. Therefore, it is possible to obtain an easy-to-see ultrasonic tomographic image corresponding to the diagnosis site, etc.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

Fig. 1 is a block diagram of an embodiment of the present invention;
3 and 3 are graphs showing gray level conversion characteristics, and FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of a display screen. 1... Probe, 2... Wave transmitting/receiving circuit, 3...
DSC control circuit, 4, 52...RAM, 5...
DSC, 51...two-dimensional memory, 53...DA converter and TV output synchronization circuit, 6...character generator, 7...CRT, 8...CPU.

Claims (1)

[Scope of utility model registration request] a probe consisting of an ultrasonic transducer; a wave transmitting/receiving circuit that drives the probe to transmit ultrasonic waves, receives the reflected waves, and generates received data corresponding to the magnitude of the reflected waves; A RAM having addresses corresponding to the received data, each address storing display data corresponding to a predetermined gray level for each image, and the received data added to the RAM as an address input. A two-dimensional memory for one screen in which the display data read from this RAM is sequentially written to a predetermined address determined for each image, and display data read from this two-dimensional memory in a predetermined scan. An ultrasonic diagnostic device consisting of a CRT that displays by modulating the brightness according to the