Automatic Definition of an Anatomic Field of View for Volumetric Cardiac Motion Estimation at High Temporal Resolution
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Methods
2.1. Anatomical Relevant Space
- Automatic real-time segmentation of myocardial boundariesA fully automatic real-time segmentation of the left ventricular myocardium in a volumetric ultrasound recording was performed using the B-spline Explicit Active Surfaces (BEAS) framework [18,19]. More specifically, BEAS uses two explicit functions, one to represent the endocardial surface and another to represent the myocardial thickness. This allows to fully characterize the endo- and epicardial surfaces. These surfaces can then be used to define a binary mask identifying voxels belonging to the myocardium only.
- Coverage functionUsing these binary images, a “coverage function” was defined as follows. First, based on the ray-tracing principle, the path of a given scanline within the volumetric image volume can be traced. The pixels belonging to that scanline are compared with the binary mask, in order to compute the percentage of pixels of the given scanline belonging to the myocardium. Finally, this procedure is repeated for all scan lines in the original pyramidal volume leading to a “coverage function”.
- Ring-shaped template matchingTo find a spatially continuous FOV that covers a given percentage of the total amount of myocardium (i.e., prospectively defined by the user as “T”), a ring-shaped template matching was used. This shape was chosen as an approximation of the left ventricular geometry when looking down from the apex, i.e., when the transducer is placed in an apical position. In 3D, this FOV therefore defines a hollowed cone, Figure 1 (left). We express the amount of myocardial coverage T as a function of the inner radius of the ring template () and its thickness (). In order to effectively gain frame rate, a compromise has to be made between the amount of myocardial coverage, i.e., T, and the extent of the FOV. From all and combinations that provide T myocardial coverage, the one with minimal was chosen, as this would keep the volume to be scanned minimal. In this way, it is ensured that the desired T coverage is obtained using the least amount of lines possible (i.e., at the highest frame rate). In turn, these radii are used to determine the parameters (opening angle, Φ, and thickness, dΦ) for a conical scan, as represented in Figure 1 (right). These radii give directly the inner and outer image lines that define the inner and outer surface of the cone. Then, using the angular inter-beam spacing, the line numbers can be converted to the respective angles.
2.2. Parallelized Scan Sequence
3. Experiments
4. Results
5. Discussion
- A pyramidal volume is acquired at a conventional frame rate (i.e., ~30 Hz).
- The coverage function and the ring-shaped template matching are applied to define an anatomical conically shaped FOV.
- Based on (iii), a fast scanning sequence is automatically selected using a LUT giving the best combination of transmit and receive parallelization (i.e., MLT-MLA) to scan the detected region-of-interest.
- The anatomical relevant space is scanned at high spatiotemporal resolution for subsequent motion analysis.
6. Conclusions
Acknowledgments
Author Contributions
Conflicts of Interest
References
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Ortega, A.; Pedrosa, J.; Heyde, B.; Tong, L.; D’hooge, J. Automatic Definition of an Anatomic Field of View for Volumetric Cardiac Motion Estimation at High Temporal Resolution. Appl. Sci. 2017, 7, 752. https://doi.org/10.3390/app7070752
Ortega A, Pedrosa J, Heyde B, Tong L, D’hooge J. Automatic Definition of an Anatomic Field of View for Volumetric Cardiac Motion Estimation at High Temporal Resolution. Applied Sciences. 2017; 7(7):752. https://doi.org/10.3390/app7070752
Chicago/Turabian StyleOrtega, Alejandra, João Pedrosa, Brecht Heyde, Ling Tong, and Jan D’hooge. 2017. "Automatic Definition of an Anatomic Field of View for Volumetric Cardiac Motion Estimation at High Temporal Resolution" Applied Sciences 7, no. 7: 752. https://doi.org/10.3390/app7070752