Angle independent Doppler color imaging: determination of accuracy and a method of display.

A multiple beam technique was utilized to obtain angle independent Doppler color images (AIDCI) using an ultrasonic scanner with a linear transducer. A quantitative study using steady flow models has been performed to evaluate the accuracy of this method in velocity measurements. The results show that the velocity amplitudes measured with this method correlated with those calculated from the measured flow rates (r = 0.95-0.98). The flow angles obtained with this method also correlated with those calculated from the coordinates of the tube image (r = 0.93-0.96). To improve the interpretation of the angle independent results, a method for visualizing two-dimensional flow fields is presented and compared with two existing methods.