GPU-Based Real-Time Imaging Software Suite for Medical Ultrasound

We developed a GPU-based real-time imaging software suite for medical ultrasound imaging to provide a fast real-time imaging platform for various probe geometries and imaging schemes. The imaging software receives raw RF data from a data acquisition system, and processes them on GPU to reconstruct real-time images. The most general-purpose imaging program in the suite displays three cross-sectional images for arbitrary probe geometry and various imaging schemes including conventional beamforming, synthetic beamforming, and plane-wave compounding. The other imaging programs in the software suite, derived from the general-purpose imaging program, are optimized for their own purposes, such as displaying a rotating B-mode plane and its maximum intensity projection (MIP), photoacoustic imaging, and real-time volume-rendering. Real-time imaging was successfully demonstrated using each of the imaging programs in the software suite.