An ultrasonic image conversion cell utilizing the liquid‐surface‐levitation effect has been developed. This effect is based upon the principle that the surface of a free liquid will be deformed in accordance with the cross‐sectional intensity distribution of an impinging ultrasonic beam. The image‐conversion cell has been successfully applied for nondestructive‐testing purposes. It can be coupled directly to an ultrasonically excited test specimen to obtain characteristic liquid‐surface relief patterns depicting internal discontinuities. A significant advantage of the conversion cell is the fact that it does not require the test specimen itself to be immersed in a liquid. Also, because the conversion cell produces a “real‐time” image, pulsed, frequency‐modulated, and continuous‐wave modes of ultrasonic excitation can be used, and thus, various types of ultrasonic images can be obtained.