Title :
Doppler color flow imaging of small vessels: a computer simulation study
Author :
Kerr, Andrew T. ; Hunt, John W.
Author_Institution :
Toronto Univ., Ont., Canada
Abstract :
The authors present simulations of flow images of steady state flow in cylindrical vessels in order to investigate the limitations of flow imaging of vessels ranging from 8-mm down to 0.1-mm diameter. A comparison between B-scan images and flow images demonstrates the relative limits to resolving a vessel and detecting flow in the vessel. The effects of bandwidth on the appearance of the flow image is also illustrated. A comparison between the observed flow pattern and the actual flow pattern is shown through velocity profiles in order to assess the degree of error in how flow is represented in the flow image. The effects of varying the flow/no-flow threshold as well as signal-to-noise and quantization on the appearance of the flow image is included to model a realistic system and to determine the limits of detectability
Keywords :
Doppler effect; acoustic imaging; biomedical ultrasonics; digital simulation; haemodynamics; medical diagnostic computing; B-scan images; Doppler color flow imaging; bandwidth; computer simulation study; cylindrical vessels; detectability limits; diagnostic imaging; flow/no-flow threshold; medical US imaging; quantization; signal-to-noise; small vessels; steady state flow; velocity profiles; Acoustic scattering; Blood; Computational modeling; Computer simulation; Focusing; Image resolution; Medical simulation; Neoplasms; Transducers; Visualization;
Conference_Titel :
Ultrasonics Symposium, 1990. Proceedings., IEEE 1990
Conference_Location :
Honolulu, HI
DOI :
10.1109/ULTSYM.1990.171619
