We present zea (pronounced ze-yah), a Python package for cognitive ultrasound imaging that offers a flexible, modular, and differentiable pipeline for ultrasound data processing. Additionally, it includes a collection of pre-defined models for ultrasound image and signal processing. The toolbox is designed to be easy to use, with a high-level interface that enables users to define custom ultrasound reconstruction pipelines and integrate deep learning models seamlessly. Built on top of Keras 3, it supports all three major deep learning backends: TensorFlow, PyTorch, and JAX, making it straightforward to incorporate custom ultrasound processing pipelines into machine learning workflows. Documentation is available at https://zea.readthedocs.io/.
@article{arxiv.2512.01433,
title = {zea: A Toolbox for Cognitive Ultrasound Imaging},
author = {Tristan S. W. Stevens and Wessel L. van Nierop and Ben Luijten and Vincent van de Schaft and Oisín Nolan and Beatrice Federici and Louis D. van Harten and Simon W. Penninga and Noortje I. P. Schueler and Ruud J. G. van Sloun},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2512.01433},
year = {2026}
}