Abstract
This work carries out a mathematical simulation study of each of the processes involved with the acquisition of echocardiographic images. Four modules, designated as: Tissue, Dynamics, Equipment and Texture, were developed for this task. The first module obtains the cardiac tissue using two different approaches: first, a mathematical approach based on a random distribution of ellipsoids, and a second approach based on a series of histological microscopical samples 20 mu m calibrated at 10 mu m per pixel. A reconstructive three-dimensional rendering of the tissue sample is made, providing correction translation and rotation. An acoustic-impedance image obtained from the fast module. The second module simulates the cardiac contraction's dynamics (translation, rotation and deformation). The third module simulates a transducer with a cosine-modulated bi-dimensional Gaussian scatter function. A post-processing, is used to extract energy, and produces the simulated echocardiographic image. Finally, the texture module analyzes the mean gray-level (MGL) as a function of the rotation angle and cardiac tissue's contraction. Results reveals the influence of the cellular and connective components of cardiac tissue on the echocardiographic response. It can be concluded that the connective component is more important when evaluating the echocardiographic response, and tissue's behavior is closer to the connective component's than to the cellular component's behavior.