Title: High performance approach for inner structures visualisation in medical data

Authors: Isabel H. Manssour, Luiz Gustavo Fernandes, Carla Maria Freitas, Gustavo Serra, Thiago Nunes

Addresses: Faculdade de Informatica, Pontificia Universidade Catolica do Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS), Av. Ipiranga, 6681, Predio 30, Bloco 4, 90.619-900, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil. ' Faculdade de Informatica, Pontificia Universidade Catolica do Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS), Av. Ipiranga, 6681, Predio 30, Bloco 4, 90.619-900, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil. ' Instituto de Informatica/PPGC, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Caixa Postal 15.064, 91.501-970, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil. ' Faculdade de Informatica, Pontificia Universidade Catolica do Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS), Av. Ipiranga, 6681, Predio 30, Bloco 4, 90.619-900, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil ' Faculdade de Informatica, Pontificia Universidade Catolica do Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS), Av. Ipiranga, 6681, Predio 30, Bloco 4, 90.619-900, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil

Abstract: The capacity and fidelity of image-based diagnosis were extended due to the evolution of medical image acquisition techniques. Such data is usually visualised through volume rendering, which denotes a set of techniques used to present three-dimensional images with the main goal of showing the interior of a volume and enabling the identification of its inner regions and structures. Several tools described in the literature are dedicated to explore different ways of incorporating seeing-through capabilities into volume rendering techniques. However, these tools are based on visualisation algorithms and are usually computationally intensive, especially when working with large datasets. An alternative to optimise rendering time is to use high performance programming to implement such tools, thus providing a faster response to user interaction. This paper presents a new approach to visualise inner structures in medical volume data using a parallel ray casting algorithm to allow user interaction with the volume.

Keywords: cutting tools; inner structures visualisation; high performance applications; image-based diagnosis; volume rendering; parallel ray casting; medical volume data; medical image acquisition; volume visualisation; medical diagnosis.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCAT.2005.006800

International Journal of Computer Applications in Technology, 2005 Vol.22 No.1, pp.23 - 33

Published online: 15 Apr 2005 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article