Real-time simulator for intravascular ultrasound (IVUS)

Intravascular Ultrasound (IVUS) plays a significant role in diagnostics of atherosclerotic diseases. Simulation of imaging techniques promises a better understanding of the physical background and segmentation strategies. Most simulation approaches describe ultrasonic backscattering using wave-equation based simplifications. More complicated real-time simulation techniques are not available so far. In this paper, we present an empirical model derived from wave-equations given by the Rayleigh integration method. According to boundary conditions and weak scatterers, a hybrid approach including the Beer-Lambert law to model attenuation is introduced. Scatterers are described by a 4D vessel-system model based on elastic tubes. Sophisticated discretization and numerical simplifications in addition to a highly optimized implementation of the model yields a real-time and realistic IVUS simulation with 20 frames/s on a 3.2 GHz Pentium 4 PC.