We present an adaptation of the pixel-reassignment technique from confocal fluorescent microscopy to coherent ultrasound imaging. The method, ultrasound pixel-reassignment (UPR), provides a resolution and signal to noise (SNR) improvement in ultrasound imaging by computationally reassigning off-focus signals acquired using traditional plane wave compounding ultrasonography. We theoretically analyze the analogy between the optical and ultrasound implementations of pixel reassignment and experimentally evaluate the imaging quality on tissue-mimicking acoustic phantoms. We demonstrate that UPR provides a 25% resolution improvement and a 3 dB SNR improvement in in vitro scans without any change in hardware or acquisition schemes.

中文翻译：

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超声成像中的像素重新分配

我们提出了从共聚焦荧光显微镜到相干超声成像的像素重新分配技术的改编。超声像素重新分配 (UPR) 方法通过计算重新分配使用传统平面波复合超声获得的离焦信号，提高了超声成像的分辨率和信噪比 (SNR)。我们从理论上分析了像素重新分配的光学和超声实现之间的类比，并通过实验评估了组织模拟声学模型的成像质量。我们证明 UPR在体外扫描中提供了 25% 的分辨率改进和 3 dB 的 SNR 改进，而硬件或采集方案没有任何改变。