Welcome to Plane Wave Volume 6, Issue 3. We hope you find these newsletters informative and interesting; we welcome your suggestions for future topics.
Software Update Now Available for Vantage™ System Customers:
New Features and Products Improve Performance, Flexibility and Speed in Ultrasound Research
As of June 30, 2022, Verasonics released to Vantage System owners its latest software version, at no cost to customers. The newest Vantage software addresses bottlenecks that can occur related to GPU performance, adds Plane Wave Imaging to NDE Research Software, and opens up new possibilities for transducer development.
New Vantage features and products can advance enablement of innovation by researchers using ultrasound in a wide range of applications areas across biomedical and materials science. New features and products include enhancements to high-performance computing with the introduction of the GPU Toolkit Option, updates to its NDE Research Software, and the introduction of the GE-408 Backshell Kit.
New Vantage System features and products include:
High-Performance Computing
Verasonics’ High-Performance Computing features enable advanced computing technologies and programming techniques for use in ultrasound. When using CPU and GPU options in Vantage, the system offers advanced methods for process-intensive programming combined with innovative hardware solutions (e.g., high-speed data transfer and specialty host controllers). In addition to capabilities available at no cost, researchers can now choose to invest in new workflows by using the GPU Toolkit Option, resulting in reduced latency, improved frame rate, and increased data processing speeds, along with enhanced performance metrics.
GPU Toolkit Option
The Verasonics GPU Toolkit Option improves performance and ease of use. Researchers can now process data on the GPU more efficiently by reducing memory copy times and latency while increasing frame rate.
The GPU Toolkit Package includes an NVIDIA GPU card, Specialty Host Controller, and software license. New tools include:
- User-selected memory allocation of the Vantage buffers used in the image reconstruction process. The current default for the system is the CPU, options include:
- Default allocation on the host PC’s RAM.
- CUDA-allocated host memory that enables faster asynchronous memory copies between the host computer and the GPU device.
- CUDA-allocated unified memory that simplifies CUDA programming by leveraging NVIDIA’s unified memory architecture.
- An Event Profiling Tool that allows users to see timing information for each operation in the event sequence. This provides users with the information needed to identify bottlenecks in data processing pipelines; this can help focus optimization efforts most efficiently.
- A 1-step compilation of CUDA source code into .mex files that does not require the MATLAB® Parallel Computing Toolbox.
- A set of example code that illustrate how to properly write synchronous or asynchronous acquisition sequences that leverage GPU external functions.
NDE Research Software
This Vantage System upgrade adds the following new features to Verasonics’ NDE Research Software:
- Plane Wave Imaging for NDE: all native imaging modes, inspection geometries and custom user imaging modes are fully compatible with plane wave acquisition.
- Enhanced user customization options that improve versatility of Vantage. Users may now import custom functions to directly modify the RF data buffer between acquisition and image reconstruction. This additional layer of custom signal processing can be used in conjunction with both native and custom imaging.
- Arbitrary transmit waveform can be specified with Vantage. Together with custom processing, users are enabled to incorporate their own pulse compression or other signal coding techniques into the software. Additionally, arbitrary array geometries are supported allowing, for example, the use of curved or conformable arrays.
GE-408 Backshell Kit and UTA 408-GE Firmware Update
Verasonics continues to expand options for researchers developing custom probes with the introduction of the GE-408 Backshell Kit, providing expanded flexibility in connection capability to the Vantage Research Ultrasound System. This new Backshell Kit is recommended to researchers developing non-muxed transducers for use with the UTA 408-GE. The GE-408 Backshell Kit features high-performance shielding and a pin-out arrangement designed to reduce crosstalk.
New firmware has been added to the UTA 408-GE enabling automatic selection between GE Healthcare’s proprietary HVMux programming when used with GE Healthcare Probes. Alternatively, researchers may take advantage of Verasonics’ HVMux programming with custom probes. By allowing the use of Verasonics’ HVMux implementation, users may utilize the HVMux to enable bias or electrical switching between rows and columns of row-column array transducers.
Next “Meet the Ultrasound Scientist” dates announced
Dates for the next customer training session hosted by Verasonics are planned for August and November. Watch our Customer Training page for updates on exact dates and topics.