Adaptive tetrahedral interpolation for reconstruction of uneven freehand 3D ultrasound


Abstract
Objective: Freehand 3Dultrasound volume reconstruction has received considerable attention in medical research because it can freely performspatial imaging at a lowcost.However, the uneven distribution of the original ultrasound images in space reduces the reconstruction effect of the traditional method.

Approach: Anadaptive tetrahedral interpolation algorithmis proposed to reconstruct3D ultrasound volume data.The algorithmadaptively divides the unevenly distributed images into numerous tetrahedrons and interpolates the voxel value in each tetrahedron to reconstruct 3D ultrasound volume data.Main results. Extensive experiments on simulated and clinical data confirmthat the proposedmethod can achievemore accurate reconstruction than six benchmarkmethods. Specifically, the averaged interpolation error at the gray level can be reduced by 0.22–0.82, and the peak signal-to-noise ratio and themean structure similarity can be improved by 0.32–1.83 dB and 0.01–0.05, respectively.

Significance: With the parallel implementation of the algorithm, one 3Dultrasound volume data with size 279×279×276 can be reconstructed from100 slices 2Dultrasound images with size 200×200 at 1.04 s. Such a quick and accurate approach has practical value inmedical research.