METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR DETECTING MOVEMENTS OF AN OBJECT USING VOLUME CHANGE

The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for visualizing movements of an object, preferably the movements of blood vessels during the cardiac cycle. The method includes scanning the object by at least a two dimensional ultrasonic image scanning apparatus at discrete acquisition times to acquire a data set by using surface reconstruction and/or volume rendering techniques. Next, the three-dimensional data set is partitioned into a plurality of volume units, wherein each volume unit has a unit surface. The method further includes calculating the change of volume of each volume unit over the acquisition times to obtain level information of each corresponding unit surface over time, and displaying the three-dimensional data set with its level information over time.