PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an ultrasonic image producing method and an apparatus, capable of quickly deciding the presence or absence of influence of refraction, shortening the time taken for measurement or calculation, performing measurement or calculation with a small error, and calculating accurate local sound velocity values.SOLUTION: In the ultrasonic image producing method, a vibrator array is a vibrator array having two-dimensionally arranged vibrators and capable of acquiring a plurality of items of two-dimensional tomographic information, and main sound velocity is performed in such a way that a B-mode image is captured, a region-of-interest is set, a lattice is set in the set region-of-interest, and local sound velocities are calculated at a plurality of lattice points. Prior to the main sound velocity measurement, environmental sound velocity values of two or more lattice points located at different positions in a scanning direction of ultrasonic waves are each measured in the lattice as preliminary sound velocity measurement, and the main sound velocity measurement is performed in a tomographic surfaces where the difference in measured sound velocity between a maximum value and a minimum value of the measured environmental sound velocity values is equal to or lower than a predetermined threshold, thereby solving the problem.COPYRIGHT: (C)2013,JPO&INPIT【課題】屈折の影響の有無を迅速に把握し、測定・演算にかかる時間を短縮すると共に、測定誤差の少ない測定・演算を行なうことができ、正確な局所音速値を求めることができる超音波画像生成方法および装置を提供する。【解決手段】振動子アレイが、2次元的に配列された振動子を有する振動子アレイであって、2次元の断層面の情報を複数、取得可能であり、Bモード画像を撮像して、着目領域を設定し、設定された着目領域に格子を設定し、複数の格子点での局所音速値を算出する音速本測定を行なうに際し、音速本測定に先立ち、音速プレ測定として、複数の断層面それぞれにおいて、格子の、超音波の走査方向に異なる2以上の格子点の環境音速値をそれぞれ測定し、測定した環境音速値の最大値と最小値との測定音速差が、所定の閾値以下となる断層面において、音速本測定を行なうことにより、前記課題を解決する。【選択図】図1
