Imaging Spinal Curvatures of AIS Patients using 3D US Free-hand Fast Reconstruction Method

The Voxel-Based Nearest Neighbor method (VNN) is one of the most commonly used reconstruction algorithms for a freehand ultrasound (US) acquisition system, however, it is time-consuming due to large scale of vector arithmetic. The objectives of this study are to develop 3D US reconstruction algorithms which can reduce the reconstruction time to the required range of real-time demonstration and processing and to improve the US image quality for higher brightness and contrast. The execution time, numerical difference comparison, brightness and contrast analysis were used to demonstrate the new methods. The result showed that the new FDP US imaging method could provide 3D spine images with faster reconstruction procedure and better image quality.