Echo Display Modes

A ‐ Mode
• A‐mode (A for amplitude) is the display of the processed information from the
receiver versus time.
• One "A‐line" of data per pulse repetition period is the result.
• The earliest uses of ultrasound in medicine used A‐mode information to determine 
the midline position of the brain for revealing possible mass effect of brain tumours. 
• A‐mode and A‐line information is currently used in ophthalmology applications for 
precise distance measurements of the eye. 
• Otherwise, A‐mode display by itself is seldom used.
 B ‐ Mode
• B‐mode (B for brightness) is the electronic conversion of the A‐mode and A‐line
information into brightness‐modulated dots on a display screen.
• The brightness of the dot is proportional to the echo signal amplitude.
• The B‐mode display is used for M‐mode and 2D gray‐scale imaging.
 M‐Mode
• M‐mode (M for motion) is a technique
that uses B‐mode information to display
the echoes from a moving organ, such as
the myocardium and valve leaflets, from
a fixed transducer position and beam
direction on the patient.
• The echo data from a single ultrasound
beam passing through moving anatomy
are acquired and displayed as a function
of time, represented by reflector depth
on the vertical axis (beam path
direction) and time on the horizontal
axis.
• M‐mode can provide excellent temporal
resolution of motion patterns, allowing
the evaluation of the function of heart
valves and other cardiac anatomy.
• Only anatomy along a single line B‐Mode                &                     M‐Mode
through the patient is represented by
the M‐mode technique.
 Digital Scan Convertors
• Digitizing the echo information.
• Scan controller receives echo intensity, position information, ultrasound velocity 
information which is fed into the digital memory.
• Most ultrasound instruments have a ~500 X 500 pixel matrix.
• Transducer beam orientation and echo delay times determine the correct pixel 
addresses (matrix coordinates) in which to deposit the digital information. 
• The final image is most often recorded with 512 X 512 X 8 bits per pixel, 
representing about ¼ megabyte of data. 
• For colour display, the bit depth is often as much as 24 bits (3 bytes per primary 
colour).
 Frame Grabbers

• Frame grabbers are used to deliver images from a machine vision camera’s output 
to the memory of a computer to be further processed and/or displayed. 
• The incoming signal from the vision camera is sampled at an rate specified by a 
fixed frequency pulse, which can be generated in the frame grabber itself or 
received from the camera.
• If the signal is not already digital it passes through an analogue to digital 
converter, and stored in the buffer until a full image has been converted/received.
 Doppler Operation
• When the sound waves and blood cells are not moving in 
parallel directions, the equation must be modified to account 
for less Doppler
shift.
• The doppler shift equation modified

v is the velocity of blood, c is the speed of sound in soft tissue.
• The velocity can be calculated by 

• Selected cosine values are cos 0 degrees = 1, cos 30 degrees 
= 0.87, cos 45 degrees = 0.707, cos 60 degrees = 0.5, and cos 
90 degrees= 0. 
• At a 60‐degree Doppler angle, the measured Doppler 
frequency shift is one half the actual Doppler frequency, and 
at 90 degrees the measured frequency shift is 0. 
• The preferred Doppler angle ranges from 30 to 60 degrees.
• The Doppler frequency shifts for moving blood occur in the 
audible range. 
 Continuous doppler operation

• The Demodulator compares the incident

and received frequency and extracts the
doppler shift frequency.
• Doppler signal contains very low frequency
signals from vessel walls and other moving
specular reflectors that a "wall filter"
selectively removes.
• An audio amplifier amplifies the Doppler
signal to an audible sound level, and a
recorder tracks spectrum changes as a
function of time for analysis of transient
pulsatile flow.
• Quadrature Detection:‐Detects the
direction of the flow by comparing the
real and imaginary part of the signal
received.
 Pulsed Doppler Operation

• Echo signals sampled – five times.

Pulse –transmitted ,Echo ‐ Received

• Sample and hold circuit detects the phase

changes.

• A wall filter removes the low‐frequency

degradations caused by transducer and patient
motion.
 Pulsed Doppler cont’d
• Aliasing occurs when the frequencies in the
sampled signal are greater than one‐half the
PRF.
• In this example, a signal of twice the frequency
is analysed as if it were the lower frequency,
and thus "masquerades“ as the lower
frequency.
• The maximum Doppler shift that is
unambiguously determined in the pulsed
Doppler acquisition follows directly from the
Doppler equation by substituting Vmax for V:

• Rearranging:

• Doppler shift frequencies exceeding one‐half

the PRF, aliasing will occur, causing a
potentially significant error in the velocity
estimation of the blood
 Pulsed Doppler Operation

• The spatial pulse length is longer (a minimum of 5 cycles per pulse up to 25 cycles per pulse)
 Duplex Scanning Doppler Spectral Interpretation

• Duplex scanning refers to the combination of

2D B‐mode imaging and pulsed Doppler data
acquisition.
• A visual guidance to vessel of interest.
• Electronic array transducers switch between a
group of transducers used to create a B‐mode
image & and one or more transducers used for
the Doppler information.
• Velocities mapped with a colour scale visually
separate the flow information from the gray‐
scale image, and a real‐time colour flow
Doppler ultrasound image indicates the
direction of flow through colour coding.
 Colour Flow Imaging

• Colour flow imaging provides a 2D visual display of moving blood in the 
vasculature, superimposed upon the conventional gray‐scale image.
• Phase shift autocorrelation or time domain correlation techniques are used 
instead of doppler shift.
• Comparison of the two A‐line data by auto correlation or Time domain correlation.
• Measured Velocity = displacement between the echo /Time between the pulses.
• Time domain correlation methods are 
less prone to aliasing effects
Colour Flow Imaging