Three-Dimensional Reconstruction and Volume Rendering of Intravascular Ultrasound Slices Imaged on a Curved Arterial Path

Past techniques for three-dimensional reconstruction of intravascular ultrasound have assumed that the ultrasound slices are parallel and that the vessel being imaged is straight. These assumptions result in distortions of vessel and lesion geometry. To properly reconstruct the volume data for a curved artery, the position and orientation of the transducer must be known or calculated. We use angiography to recover the geometry of the artery centerline, which is then used as a coordinate system to position the ultrasound slices. To estimate the registration of the slices, several landmark sites are selected by the physician and imaged over a complete heart cycle. Continuous pullbacks are then used to sample between the landmark sites, yielding a three-dimensional volume data set. Standard volume rendering techniques require data on a regular grid. We present new sampling and rendering techniques that handle the oriented ultrasound slices positioned along the curved artery.