In various scenarios, accurate 3D tracking of ultrasound probes (e.g. by optical or electro-magnetic tracking) is not feasible, but recovering the 3D trajectory of the ultrasound scan would be helpful for diagnosis, measurements, or image registration.
Using only Deep Learning, potentially an inertial measurement unit, and the powerful 3D image registration capabilities of the ImFusion Suite, we have been able to accurately predict probe motion in extremity scans, to reconstruct the 3D shape of the thyroid, and to register liver scans even when there are breathing artifacts.
This work did not only lead to successful productization by piur imaging but also high-profile publications:
Three-dimensional thyroid assessment from untracked 2D ultrasound clips Proceedings Article
In: Medical Image Computing and Computer-Assisted Intervention–MICCAI 2020. Lecture Notes in Computer Science., pp. 514-523, Springer, Cham, 2020.
3D Freehand Ultrasound Without External Tracking Using Deep Learning Journal Article
In: Medical Image Analysis, vol. 48, pp. 187–202, 2018.