1. An intravascular ultrasound imaging system, comprising: a catheter having an elongated body having a distal end, the catheter having an imaging core configured to be inserted into the elongated body, the imaging core being configured to transmit ultrasonic energy pulses and to receive reflected ultrasonic energy pulses; and an imaging engine coupled to the imaging core and configured to provide the imaging core with energy pulses, the energy pulses being ultrasonic, to cause the imaging core to transmit the ultrasonic energy pulses, each energy pulse having a predefined energy pulse characteristic within a plurality of predefined energy pulse characteristics, the energy pulses being transmitted such that the associated predefined energy pulse characteristics are arranged in a repeating sequence, wherein the imaging engine is further configured to process the reflected ultrasonic energy pulses into separate image frames, the separate image frames being acquired from the sequence of predefined energy pulse characteristics of the reflected ultrasonic energy pulses, each image frame corresponding to a predefined energy pulse characteristic, the imaging engine being further configured to identify prominent features of each separate image frame, the imaging engine being configured to provide display signals for simultaneously displaying the separate image frames as a composite image, the imaging engine is further configured to form the composite image by co-registering the separate image frames, such that features more prominent in a first image of the separate image frames are mapped to a second image of the separate image frames, and features more prominent in the second image are mapped to the first image, thereby including at least a portion of the prominent features of each of the separate image frames in the composite image.