A User‐Friendly Software Package for HIFU Simulation

A freely‐distributed, MATLAB (The Mathworks, Inc., Natick, MA)‐based software package for simulating axisymmetric high‐intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) beams and their heating effects is discussed. The package (HIFU_Simulator) consists of a propagation module which solves the Khokhlov‐Zabolotskaya‐Kuznetsov (KZK) equation and a heating module which solves Pennes’ bioheat transfer (BHT) equation. The pressure, intensity, heating rate, temperature, and thermal dose fields are computed, plotted, the output is released to the MATLAB workspace for further user analysis or postprocessing.