Picmus

Plane-Wave imaging enables very high frame rates, up to several thousand frames per second. Unfortunately the lack of transmit focusing leads to reduced image quality, both in terms of resolution and contrast. Recently, numerous beamforming techniques have been proposed to compensate for this effect, but comparing the different methods is difficult due to the lack of appropriate tools. PICMUS, the Plane-Wave Imaging Challenge in Medical Ultrasound aims to provide these tools. This paper describes the PICMUS challenge, its motivation, implementation, and metrics.

平面波成像（Plane-Wave imaging）可实现极高的帧率，最高可达数千帧每秒。但遗憾的是，由于缺乏发射聚焦，其图像质量会在分辨率与对比度两方面出现劣化。近年来，诸多波束成形（beamforming）技术已被提出以补偿这一不足，但由于缺乏适配的工具，不同方法间的性能对比仍存在难度。医学超声平面波成像挑战赛（Plane-Wave Imaging Challenge in Medical Ultrasound，简称PICMUS）旨在提供这类工具。本文将对PICMUS挑战赛的发起初衷、实现方案与评价指标进行详细介绍。