VELOCITY FLOW-FIELD ANALYSIS OF CARDIAC DYNAMICS.

The use of an optical flow analysis of heart imagery in order to derive a more accurate description of cardiac motion is proposed. The optical flow technique associates an instantaneous velocity vector with each small volume of tissue in the image. The velocity vectors are derived by a mathematical analysis that incorporates known physical constraints on the heart motion and known mechanical properties of the tissue; the motion description is thus likely to be more accurate than that derived using ad hoc assumptions. Two methods of optical flow analysis are proposed; one is applicable to images derived from real-time magnetic resonance scans and real-time computed tomographic scans, and the second is applicable to ultrasound imagery.