# UltraRay: Introducing Full-Path Ray Tracing in Physics-Based Ultrasound Simulation

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.05828 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.05828/

## Key facts

- Cited by 5 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 5 of its 29 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 10 Jan 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 5 of 5)

- [Ultra-NeRF: Neural Radiance Fields for Ultrasound Imaging](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.10520/) (2023)
- [High Resolution 3D Ultrasonic Breast Imaging by Time-Domain Full Waveform Inversion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.00755/) (2021)
- [Ultrasound segmentation using U-Net: learning from simulated data and testing on real data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.11031/) (2019)
- [LOTUS: Learning to Optimize Task-based US representations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.16021/) (2023)
- [Cardiac ultrasound simulation for autonomous ultrasound navigation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.06463/) (2024)

## Built on by (most cited first, 5 of 5)

- [Ultrasound Image Generation using Latent Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.08580/) (2025)
- [DiffUS: Differentiable Ultrasound Rendering from Volumetric Imaging](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.06768/) (2025)
- [UltraG-Ray: Physics-Based Gaussian Ray Casting for Novel Ultrasound View Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.29022/) (2026)
- [Multivariate Gaussian NeRF for Wide Field-of-View Ultrasound Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.24187/) (2026)
- [Shadow Reduction in Ultrasound Imaging Using Differentiable Simulation and Radiance Field Decomposition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.29373/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Traditional ultrasound simulators solve the wave equation to model pressure distribution fields, achieving high accuracy but requiring significant computational time and resources. To address this, ray tracing approaches have been introduced, modeling wave propagation as rays interacting with boundaries and scatterers. However, existing models simplify ray propagation, generating echoes at interaction points without considering return paths to the sensor. This can result in unrealistic artifacts and necessitates careful scene tuning for plausible results. We propose a novel ultrasound simulation pipeline that utilizes a ray tracing algorithm to generate echo data, tracing each ray from the transducer through the scene and back to the sensor. To replicate advanced ultrasound imaging, we introduce a ray emission scheme optimized for plane wave imaging, incorporating delay and steering capabilities. Furthermore, we integrate a standard signal processing pipeline to simulate end-to-end ultrasound image formation. We showcase the efficacy of the proposed pipeline by modeling synthetic scenes featuring highly reflective objects, such as bones. In doing so, our proposed approach, UltraRay, not only enhances the overall visual quality but also improves the realism of the simulated images by accurately capturing secondary reflections and reducing unnatural artifacts. By building on top of a differentiable framework, the proposed pipeline lays the groundwork for a fast and differentiable ultrasound simulation tool necessary for gradient-based optimization, enabling advanced ultrasound beamforming strategies, neural network integration, and accurate inverse scene reconstruction.