Ultrasonic thick slice image forming via parallel multiple scanline acquisition

1. An ultrasonic diagnostic imaging system for thick slice imaging comprising:

an array transducer configured to transmit and receive scanlines over a volumetric region;

a beamformer, coupled to the array transducer, which acts to control the array transducer to transmit beams, each of which insonifies a plurality of receive scanline locations, and to receive echoes from the plurality of receive scanline locations simultaneously to produce image data of a plurality of parallel, elevationally distinct slices of the volumetric region;

a slice memory, coupled to the beamformer, which stores slice image data;

a combiner, coupled to the slice memory, which combines newly acquired slice image data with a portion of previously acquired slice image data in the elevation direction; and

a display responsive to the combiner for displaying thick slice images at a frame rate which is faster than that of the time to acquire a complete set of the combined slice image data.

2. The ultrasonic diagnostic imaging system of claim 1 , further comprising a beamformer controller coupled to the beamformer which controls the number of slices to be scanned for a thick slice image.

3. The ultrasonic diagnostic imaging system of claim 2 , wherein the array transducer is configured to electronically focus and steer scanlines over a volumetric region.

4. The ultrasonic diagnostic imaging system of claim 3 , wherein the beamformer further comprises a multiline beamformer.

5. The ultrasonic diagnostic imaging system of claim 4 , wherein the beamformer controller further controls at least one of the number of transmit slices and the number of receive slices per transmit slice.

6. The ultrasonic diagnostic imaging system of claim 1 , wherein the slice memory includes a first memory area for storing data of a currently acquired slice and a second memory area for storing data of previously acquired slices which are to be combined in a thick slice image.

7. The ultrasonic diagnostic imaging system of claim 6 , wherein the slice memory further includes a third memory area for storing data of a thick slice image.

8. The ultrasonic diagnostic imaging system of claim 1 , wherein the combiner further performs at least one of summing slice data in the elevation direction, averaging slice data in the elevation direction, weighting slice data in the elevation direction, or detecting the maximum value of slice data in the elevation direction.

9. The ultrasonic diagnostic imaging system of claim 1 , wherein the slice image data is processed prior to storage in the slice memory by at least one of a B mode processor or a Doppler processor.

10. The ultrasonic diagnostic imaging system of claim 1 , wherein the beamformer further comprises a microbeamformer coupled to the array transducer and a main beamformer coupled to the microbeamformer.

11. An ultrasonic diagnostic imaging system for thick slice imaging comprising:

an array transducer located in an ultrasound probe and configured to transmit and receive scanlines over a volumetric region;

a microbeamformer located in the probe and coupled to the array transducer to control the array transducer to transmit beams, each of which insonifies a plurality of receive scanline locations, and to receive echoes from the plurality of receive scanline locations simultaneously, and to further control the steering and focusing of ultrasound signals over a plurality of adjacent slices in the volumetric region which are parallel to each other in the elevation direction;

a detector, coupled to the microbeamformer, which detects image data of the slices;

a slice memory, coupled to the beamformer, which stores slice image data;

a combiner, coupled to the slice memory, which combines recently acquired slice image data with slice image data previously combined with other slice image data in the elevation direction; and

a display responsive to the combiner for displaying thick slice images at a real time frame rate of display which is faster than that of the time to acquire the recently acquired and the previously combined slice image data.

12. The ultrasonic diagnostic imaging system of claim 11 , wherein the array transducer comprises an electronically steered and focused two dimensional array transducer.

13. The ultrasonic diagnostic imaging system of claim 12 , wherein the array transducer acts to transmit beams, each of which insonifies receive scanline locations of a plurality of slices.

14. The ultrasonic diagnostic imaging system of claim 13 , wherein the array transducer scans a slice by transmitting beams over an azimuth scanning interval, and wherein the array transducer acquires echo signals from a plurality of slices during the azimuth scanning interval.

15. The ultrasonic diagnostic imaging system of claim 14 , wherein the detector detects image data of the plurality of slices, and

wherein the slice memory operates to store the image data of the plurality of slices.

16. The ultrasonic diagnostic imaging system of claim 15 , wherein, following the azimuth scanning interval, the combiner acts to combine in the elevation dimension the image data of the plurality of slices acquired during the azimuth scanning interval with the image data of a plurality of previously acquired slices.

17. The ultrasonic diagnostic imaging system of claim 15 , wherein following the azimuth scanning interval, the array transducer commences a second azimuth scanning interval, during which echo signals are acquired from a second plurality of slices,

wherein the slice memory operates to store image data from the second plurality of slices in place of at least some of the image data of the previously acquired slices.

18. The ultrasonic diagnostic imaging system of claim 17 , wherein, following the second azimuth scanning interval, the combiner acts to combine in the elevation dimension the image data of the slices acquired during the first and second azimuth scanning intervals.