Ultrasonic diagnostic device

Claim 1

An ultrasonic diagnostic device having an ultrasonic probe and a probe driving means for transmitting ultrasonic pulses to a subject body, for obtaining a plurality of two-dimensional tomographic image signals by detecting the reflected pulses and for synthesizing a plurality of the two-dimensional tomographic image signals to form a three-dimensional image signals comprising: (1) a probe supporting means for freely setting the position and the direction of the radiating surface of a pulse beam radiated from said ultrasonic probe in a three-dimensional space surrounding the subject body; (2) a probe position-direction detection means for detecting the position and the direction of the radiating surface of the pulse beam in reference to the origin of three-dimensional coordinates for identifying the three-dimensional space surrounding the subject body; (3) an image signal conversion means for A/D converting the two-dimensional tomographic image signals of the subject body detected with said probe to discompose the signals into picture elements; for forming a signal to identify the position in the three-dimensional coordinates concerning each picture element composing the image based on the signal showing the position and the direction of said probe; and for giving an identification signal to each picture element; (4) a three-dimensional image memory means comprising a memory area for a plurality of picture element signals corresponding to the positions in the three-dimensional space to be identified by the three-dimensional coordinates; (5) an image signal processing means for operating two kinds of signals with a predetermined method and for storing the operation results again into the memory area of the same coordinates as those wherein the signals had been stored; one of the signals being the picture element signals, composing the two-dimensional tomographic images, leaving the identified positions in a three-dimensional coordinate system being identified by said image signal conversion means; the other one of the signals being the picture element signals read out from said three-dimensional image memory means storing them in corresponding coordinate positions.