Postprocessing of velocity distributions in real-time ultrasonic color velocity imaging

A robust processing scheme is proposed that improves the presentation of 2-dimensional velocity distributions in real-time ultrasonic color velocity images. Essentially, the algorithm is a modification of a first order recursive filter, processing each velocity signal in the spatial distribution separately from the others. It restores the sudden holes and notches in the velocity profiles that occur whenever the observed blood velocity is incidentally close to zero. At the same time, unlike conventional persistence filters, it does not influence any of the true velocity information that is measured. The result is a consistent sequence of color velocity images with smooth transitions between the borders of the consecutive velocity profiles and with an improved definition of the regions containing blood.