METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR DETECTING BLOOD VESSELS AND DISPLAYING AN ENHANCED VIDEO IMAGE FROM AN ULTRASOUND SCAN

The system for detecting blood vessels and displaying an enhanced video image from video images obtained from an ultrasound scanner includes, in one embodiment, a target filter which limits the area in the video image to a predetermined size and an edge detector which senses gradients in pixel values in that target area. The edge detector marks transitional pixels at gradients exceeding a certain level. The system also includes a monitor for displaying the video image obtained from the ultrasound scanner. The marked transitional pixels are displayed in a contrasting color compared to the concurrently displayed input video image. In one embodiment, the target filter detects motion by comparing moving image block target areas separated in both time and space, counting moving image blocks and further limiting the target area to areas having the highest number of moving image blocks. Accordingly, smaller target areas are processed with the edge detector. In another embodiment, the target filter includes a gross edge detector, a transitional pixel counter and a further target filter which prioritizes the various the initial target areas such that the target area having the highest number of maaraked pixels is selected as the area to be further processed by the edge detector. In both embodiments, the electronic processing occurs in real time. A method is disclosed for detecting blood vessels and displaying an enhanced video image from a plurality of video images obtained from an ultrasound scanner.