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A method and system for indicating the position and orientation of a scan plane relative to a patient is provided. The image as presented on a display is oriented in accordance with the orientation of a transducer. The orientation may provide for displaying an image where the transducer is not in a transducer up or transducer down position, but is rotated away from vertical of the display. Alternatively or additionally, a two or three-dimensional graphical generic representation is provided with a scan plane indicated as a polygon or image rendering within a generic representation to show relative positioning of the scan plane with respect to the patient.

In an ultrasonic imaging system, an ultrasonic angiographic image of a blood vessel, equivalent to an X-ray angiographic image, is produced in a real time by utilizing an IIR digital filter with a ROM and a frame memory. The ultrasonic imaging system comprises: a scanning unit for scanning a biological body under medical examination within a three-dimensional scanning plane involving the biological body by utilizing ultrasonic pulses to obtain echo signals produced from echo pulses reflected from the biological body; an ultrasonic image data producing unit for producing a plurality of ultrasonic scanned image data about the scanned biological body with regard to the respective scanning planes in response to the echo signals; a bloodflow-distribution image data producing unit for producing a plurality of bloodflow-distribution image data about the scanned biological body with regard to the respective scanning planes in response to the echo signals; a storage unit for temporarily storing the plurality of bloodflow-distribution image data, while sequentially updating and superimposing the plural bloodflow-distribution image data with each other during a predetermined scanning period.