M. A. Franklin, A. Mahajan and R. M. Arthur, "Parallel Implementations of 3D Synthetic-Focus Ultrasonic Image Generation using MPI", Proceedings of the Thirteenth ISCA International Conference on Parallel and Distributed Computing Systems, vol. 2, pp. 205-212, 2000.

Abstract

Ultrasonic imaging is a low cost, noninvasive, real-time diagnostic tool used widely in the medicine. Conventional imaging systems use focus-and-steer algorithms to generate two-dimensional images that are in focus at a few sites along each ultrasound beam. In contrast, synthetic-focus images can be in focus at each pixel. Unfortunately, synthetic-focus images cannot readily be generated in real time. In this paper we examine a synthetic-focus algorithm for image generation in three dimensions. This algorithm backprojects the contents of backscatter memory to pixels corresponding to locations in the insonified medium from which the backscattered signals could have arisen. This operation is highly parallelizable and offers various options for the ways in which the parallelism can be exploited. We present and discuss implementation of the algorithm utilizing the popular MPI software package. The results of running the parallel algorithm on an Ultra SPARC II parallel processor are analyzed and the implications for real-time imaging considered.

Keywords: Parallel image generation, ultrasonic image reconstruction, MPI performance, caching effects