A framework for synthetic validation of 3D echocardiographic particle image velocimetry

Particle image velocimetry (PIV) has been significantly advanced since its conception in early 1990s. With the advancement of imaging modalities, applications of 2D PIV have far expanded into biology and medicine. One example is echocardiographic particle image velocimetry that is used for in vivo mapping of the flow inside the heart chambers with opaque boundaries. Velocimetry methods can help better understanding the biomechanical problems. The current trend is to develop three-dimensional velocimetry techniques that take advantage of modern medical imaging tools. This study provides a novel framework for validation of velocimetry methods that are inherently three dimensional such as but not limited to those acquired by 3D echocardiography machines. This framework creates 3D synthetic fields based on a known 3D velocity field \({\mathbf{V}}\) and a given 3D brightness field \({\mathbf{B}}\). The method begins with computing the inverse flow \({\mathbf{V}}^{\varvec{*}} \) based on the velocity field \({\mathbf{V}}\). Then the transformation of \({\mathbf{B}}\), imposed by \({\mathbf{V}}\), is calculated using the computed inverse flow according to \({\mathbf{B}}^{\varvec{*}} \left( {\mathbf{x}} \right) = {\mathbf{B}}\left( {{\mathbf{x}} + {\mathbf{V}}^{\varvec{*}} \left( {\mathbf{x}} \right)} \right)\), where x is the coordinates of voxels in \({\mathbf{B}}^{\varvec{*}} \), with a 3D weighted average interpolation, which provides high accuracy, low memory requirement, and low computational time. To check the validity of the framework, we generate pairs of 3D brightness fields by employing Hill’s spherical vortex velocity field. \({\mathbf{B}}\) and the generated \({\mathbf{B}}^{\varvec{*}} \) are then processed by our in-house 3D particle image velocimetry software to obtain the interrelated velocity field. The results indicates that the computed and imposed velocity fields are in agreement.