NOISE SUPPRESSION METHOD UTILIZING MOTION COMPENSATION FOR ULTRASOUND IMAGES

A method for measuring the interframe movement of pixels in a second ultrasoud image frame with respect to the pixels in a first ultrasoud image frame. The movement information may be displayed to provide enhanced information about the underlying physiology or to provide a temporally compounded image having reduced noise. In the preferred embodiment of the present invention, the pixels in that actually change between frames are identified. The first frame is divided into blocks and an estimated velocity computed for each block having a sufficient number of pixels that actually moved between the first and second frames. After all of the velocity estimates have been computed, blocks having questionable velocity estimates are identified. Blocks for which the velocity estimate was questionable are then provided with a velocity estimate by interpolating the velocity vectors of the nearby blocks having valid velocity estimates. The preferred method for estimating the velocity utilizes a modified optical flow computation that is more stable than prior art optical flow models.