A multi-resolution displacement estimator for ultrasonic myocardial strain imaging

Low signal-to-noise ratio regions and large deformations in myocardial strain imaging cause peak hopping artifacts, especially near peak systole. To solve this problem, we propose a multi-resolution Viterbi search algorithm to maximally utilize tissue continuity and finite strain constraints to improve displacement estimation. Data from an isolated rabbit heart experiment were used to validate the proposed algorithm. An 86.1% reduction in peak hopping artifacts strongly suggests that the proposed algorithm is effective for myocardial strain imaging.