An Open Source Realtime GPU Beamformer for Row-Column and Top Orthogonal to Bottom Electrode (TOBE) Arrays

TL;DR

This paper introduces an open-source, GPU-accelerated ultrasound reconstruction software supporting advanced real-time imaging modes for novel TOBE arrays, improving image quality and field of view.

Contribution

It presents a novel open-source GPU software suite for real-time ultrasound beamforming with TOBE arrays, enabling advanced imaging modes and improved performance.

Findings

Enhanced image quality with TOBE arrays

Supports real-time synthetic aperture imaging

Provides open-source tools and datasets

Abstract

Research ultrasound platforms have enabled many next-generation imaging sequences but have lacked realtime navigation capabilities for emerging 2D arrays such as row-column arrays (RCAs). We present an open-source, GPU-accelerated reconstruction and rendering software suite integrated with a programmable ultrasound platform and novel electrostrictive Top-Orthogonal-to-Bottom-Electrode (TOBE) arrays. The system supports advanced real-time modes, including cross-plane aperture-encoded synthetic-aperture imaging and aperture-encoded volumetric scanning. TOBE-enabled methods demonstrate improved image quality and expanded field of view compared with conventional RCA techniques. The software implements beamforming and rendering kernels using OpenGL compute shaders and is designed for maximum data throughput helping to minimize stalls and latency. Accompanying sample datasets and example scripts for offline reconstruction are provided to facilitate external testing.