A single-chip catheter-based device that would provide forward-looking, real-time, three-dimensional imaging from inside the heart, coronary arteries and peripheral blood vessels is shown being tested. (Credit: Rob Felt, Georgia Tech)

A single-chip catheter-based device that would provide forward-looking, real-time, three-dimensional imaging from inside the heart, coronary arteries and peripheral blood vessels is shown on the tip of a finger. A microscope image of the device is shown behind it. (Credit: Rob Felt, Georgia Tech)

Researchers are shown testing a single-chip catheter-based device that would provide forward-looking, real-time, three-dimensional imaging from inside the heart, coronary arteries and peripheral blood vessels. Shown (left-to-right) are postdoctoral fellow Coskun Tekes, Ph.D. student Toby Xu and professor F. Levent Degertekin. (Credit: Rob Felt, Georgia Tech)

The device integrates ultrasound transducers with processing electronics on a single 1.4 millimeter silicon chip. On-chip processing of signals allows data from more than a hundred elements on the device to be transmitted using just 13 tiny cables, permitting it to easily travel through circuitous blood vessels. The forward-looking images produced by the device would provide significantly more information than existing cross-sectional ultrasound. (Credit: Rob Felt, Georgia Tech)

F. Levent Degertekin, a professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, is shown in the laboratory where new 3-D medical imaging technology is being developed. (Credit: Rob Felt, Georgia Tech)

Read: Single Chip Device Provides Real-Time 3D Images from Inside the Heart