HeartPad: Real-time visual guidance for cardiac ultrasound

Medical ultrasound is a challenging modality when it comes to image interpretation. The goal we address in this work is to assist the ultrasound examiner and partially alleviate the burden of interpretation. We propose to address this goal with visualization that provides clear cues on the orientation and the correspondence between anatomy and the data being imaged. Our system analyzes the stream of 3D ultrasound data and in real-time identifies distinct features that are basis for a dynamically deformed mesh model of the heart. The heart mesh is composited with the original ultrasound data to create the data-to-anatomy correspondence. The visualization is broadcasted over the internet allowing, among other opportunities, a direct visualization on the patient on a tablet computer. The examiner interacts with the transducer and with the visualization parameters on the tablet. Our system has been characterized by domain specialist as useful in medical training and for navigating occasional ultrasound users.