An improved implementation of block matching for motion estimation in ultrasound imaging

Fernando Mitsuyama Cardoso; Sergio Shiguemi Furuie

doi:10.1117/12.2254438

13 March 2017 An improved implementation of block matching for motion estimation in ultrasound imaging

Fernando Mitsuyama Cardoso, Sergio Shiguemi Furuie

Proceedings Volume 10139, Medical Imaging 2017: Ultrasonic Imaging and Tomography; 1013916 (2017) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2254438
Event: SPIE Medical Imaging, 2017, Orlando, Florida, United States

Abstract

Ultrasound elastography has become an important procedure that provides information about the tissue dynamics and may help on the detection of tissue abnormalities. Therefore, motion estimation in a sequence of ultrasound acquisition is crucial to the quality of this information. We propose a novel algorithm to perform speckle tracking, which consists in an implementation of 2D Block Matching with two enhancements: sub-pixel linear interpolation and displacement propagation, which are able to increase resolution, reduce computation time and prevent kernel mismatching errors. This method does not require any additional hardware and provide real-time information. The proposed technique was evaluated using four different numerical phantoms and its results were compared with the results from standard 2D block matching and optical flow. The proposed method outperformed the other two methods, providing an average error of 0.98 pixels, while standard 2D block matching and optical flow presented an average error of 2.50 and 10.03 pixels, respectively. The proposed algorithm was also assessed with four different physical phantoms and a qualitative comparison showed that the proposed technique presented results that were compatible to the results from the built-in elastography mode of the ultrasound equipment (Ultrasonix Touch).

Citation Download Citation

Fernando Mitsuyama Cardoso and Sergio Shiguemi Furuie "An improved implementation of block matching for motion estimation in ultrasound imaging", Proc. SPIE 10139, Medical Imaging 2017: Ultrasonic Imaging and Tomography, 1013916 (13 March 2017); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2254438

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