586 results about "Volume rendering" patented technology

A method and gesture-based control system for manipulating a 3-dimensional medical dataset include translating a body part, detecting the translation of the body part with a camera system. The method and system include translating a crop plane in the 3-dimensional medical dataset based on the translating the body part. The method and system include cropping the 3-dimensional medical dataset at the location of the crop plane after translating the crop plane and displaying the cropped 3-dimensional medical dataset using volume rendering.

Using medical three-dimensional image data, at least one of a volume-rendering image, a flat reformatted image on an arbitrary section, a curved reformatted image, and an MIP (maximum value projection) image is prepared as a reference image. Vessel center lines are extracted from this reference image, and at least one of a vessel stretched image based on the center line and a perpendicular sectional image substantially perpendicular to the center line is prepared. The shape of vessels is analyzed on the basis of the prepared image, and the prepared stretched image and/or the perpendicular sectional image is compared with the reference image, and the result is displayed together with the images. Display of the reference image with the stretched image or the perpendicular sectional image is made conjunctive. Correction of the center line by the operator and automatic correction of the image resulting from the correction are also possible.

A system and method for the imaging management of a 3D space where various substantially real-time scan images have been acquired is presented. In exemplary embodiments according to the present invention, a user can visualize images of a portion of a body or object obtained from a substantially real-time scanner not just as 2D images, but as positionally and orientationally located slices within a particular 3D space. In such exemplary embodiments a user can convert such slices into volumes whenever needed, and can process the images or volumes using known image processing and/or volume rendering techniques. Alternatively, a user can acquire ultrasound images in 3D using the techniques of UltraSonar or 4D Ultrasound. In exemplary embodiments according to the present invention, a user can manage various substantially real-time images obtained, either as slices or volumes, and can control their visualization, processing and display, as well as their registration and fusion with other images, volumes and virtual objects obtained or derived from prior scans of the body or object of interest using various modalities.

A system and process for rendering and displaying an interactive viewpoint video is presented in which a user can watch a dynamic scene while manipulating (freezing, slowing down, or reversing) time and changing the viewpoint at will. The ability to interactively control viewpoint while watching a video is an exciting new application for image-based rendering. Because any intermediate view can be synthesized at any time, with the potential for space-time manipulation, this type of video has been dubbed interactive viewpoint video.

A device for rendering to multiple viewpoints of a stereoscopic display is provided. The device includes vertex shaders which receive vertices corresponding to primitives and process viewpoint dependent information. The device also includes a primitive replication unit which replicates primitives according to a number of viewpoints supported by the stereoscopic display. The primitive replication unit adds unique view tags to each of the primitives which identify the viewpoint that the respective primitive is destined for. Each replicated primitive is processed by a rasterizer and converted into pixels. The rasterizer adds a view tag to the rasterized pixels so that the pixels identify a respective primitive and identify a respective pixel buffer that the pixel is destined for. The pixels can then be processed by a pixel processing unit and written to a pixel buffer corresponding to a respective viewpoint. The pixels are subsequently output to the stereoscopic display.

A plurality of projection images are acquired over an angular range during the slow rotation of a C-arm gantry having a source and detector. Phase-specific reconstructions are generated from the plurality of projections, wherein each phase-specific reconstruction is generated generally from projections acquired at or near the respective phase. In one embodiment, a plurality of motion estimates are generated based upon the phase-specific reconstructions. One or more motion-corrected reconstructions may be generated using the respective motion estimates and projections. The motion-corrected reconstructions may be associated to form motion-corrected volume renderings.

Methods, systems, and computer program products for processing three-dimensional image data to render an image from a viewpoint within or beyond an occluding region of the image data are disclosed. According to one method, a set of three-dimensional image data is accessed. The image data includes image data for a surface of interest and image data for a region occluding the surface of interest from a desired viewpoint. The viewpoint may be within or beyond the occluding region. A plurality of rays is cast from the viewpoint to the surface. Along each ray, an occlusion determination is made independent from a volume rendering transfer function definition to render voxels within the occluding region as transparent or partially transparent. The volume rendering transfer function is applied along a portion of each ray outside of the occluding region to render voxels defining surface of interest as visible. The voxels that define the surface are displayed as visible. The voxels within the occluding region are shown in a transparent or partially transparent manner.

A tissue-image creating unit creates a tissue image including depth values by volume rendering from three-dimensional tissue data stored in a three-dimensional data storage unit. A blood-flow data converting unit scatters a blood flow in three-dimensional blood-flow data stored in the three-dimensional data storage unit into particles, and converts the three-dimensional blood-flow data into three-dimensional particle data. A blood-flow image creating unit creates a blood-flow image including depth values from the three-dimensional particle data. A composite-image creating unit then creates a composite image by coordinating the order of rendering particles and tissue based on the depth values of respective pixels included in the tissue image and the depth values of respective particles included in the blood-flow image. A display control unit then controls display of the composite image so as to be displayed in order onto a monitor included in an output unit.

For diagnosis and treatment of cardiac disease, images of the heart muscle and coronary vessels are captured using different medical imaging modalities; e.g., single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), positron emission tomography (PET), electron-beam X-ray computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), or ultrasound (US). For visualizing the multi-modal image data, the data is presented using a technique of volume rendering, which allows users to visually analyze both functional and anatomical cardiac data simultaneously. The display is also capable of showing additional information related to the heart muscle, such as coronary vessels. Users can interactively control the viewing angle based on the spatial distribution of the quantified cardiac phenomena or atherosclerotic lesions.

Methods and apparatus are configured to provide data to render (medical) images using direct volume rendering by electronically analyzing a medical volume data set associated with a patient that is automatically electronically divided into a plurality of local histograms having intensity value ranges associated therewith and programmatically generating data used for at least one of tissue detection or tissue classification of tissue having overlapping intensity values.

A computer-based method and system for interactive volume rendering of a large volume data on a conventional personal computer using hardware-accelerated block filtration optimizing uses 3D-textured axis-aligned slices and block filtration. Fragment processing in a rendering pipeline is lessened by passing fragments to various processors selectively in blocks of voxels based on a filtering process operative on slices. The process involves generating a corresponding image texture and performing two-pass rendering, namely a virtual rendering pass and a main rendering pass. Block filtration is divided into static block filtration and dynamic block filtration. The static block filtration locates any view-independent unused signal being passed to a rasterization pipeline. The dynamic block filtration determines any view-dependent unused block generated due to occlusion. Block filtration processes utilize the vertex shader and pixel shader of a GPU in conventional personal computer graphics hardware. The method is for multi-thread, multi-GPU operation.

A technique is provided for automatically generating a bone mask in CTA angiography. In accordance with the technique, an image data set may be pre-processed to accomplish a variety of function, such as removal of image data associated with the table, partitioning the volume into regionally consistent sub-volumes, computing structures edges based on gradients, and/or calculating seed points for subsequent region growing. The pre-processed data may then be automatically segmented for bone and vascular structure. The automatic vascular segmentation may be accomplished using constrained region growing in which the constraints are dynamically updated based upon local statistics of the image data. The vascular structure may be subtracted from the bone structure to generate a bone mask. The bone mask may in turn be subtracted from the image data set to generate a bone-free CTA volume for reconstruction of volume renderings.

The invention provides a method for analyzing the pore structure of solid material based on microscopic image, belonging to the technical field for analyzing the pore structure of the solid material.The method is characterized of: obtaining the CT single cross section image of the solid material by microscopic CT scanning; using computer language to digitally image process the CT single cross section image; taking the pixel side of the image as the size of hole diameter; computing the hole diameter of the solid material, porosity and change regularity of the hole diameter and the porosity based on the microscopic CT single image; selecting the CT single image after processing a plurality of digital image; generating a CT image sequence; three dimensionally rebuilding the CT single image with a volume rendering algorithm in a visual rebuilding algorithm; generating the three dimensional digital image of the solid material; and computing the hole diameter of the solid material, the porosity and the change regularity of the hole diameter and the porosity based on the microscopic CT single image. The method is widely used for analyzing and computing the hole size and the porosity of the solid material under the various hole sizes of the solid material.

The invention provides a three-dimensional printer and a three-dimensional printing method. The three-dimensional printer comprises multiple wire wheels, a printing head, a forming base, a movable motor component and a consumable supplying motor component, wherein each wire wheel is provided with a kind of imaging material, the printing head is used for extruding the imaging material, the consumable supplying motor component comprises multiple motors, each motor is used for driving the corresponding imaging material to be transferred into the printing head, wherein a wire changing device is arranged between the consumable supplying motor component and the printing head, multiple fiber material input ends and a fiber output end are arranged on the wire changing device, the fiber material output end is connected with the printing head, and the wire changing device is communicated with a guide hole between each fiber material input end and the fiber output end. The invention also provides the three-dimensional printing method applied to the three-dimensional printer. The guide holes are used for guiding fiber materials so as to improve imaging stability, the displacement of wires is avoided, and multi-color volume rendering can also be realized through the single printing head, and the three-dimensional printer is simple in structure and low in cost.

A method of propagating a ray through an image includes providing a digitized volumetric image comprising a plurality of intensities corresponding to a domain of voxels in a 3-dimensional space, providing a reduced path octree structure of said volumetric image, said reduced path octree comprising a plurality of first level nodes, wherein each first level node contains a plurality of said voxels, initializing a ray inside said volumetric image, and visiting each first level node along said ray, wherein if said first level node is non-empty, visiting each voxel contained within each first level node.

A technique is provided for visualizing a volume of interest, such as may be acquired by a tomosynthesis imaging system. The technique provides for the use of one or more weighting functions, such as depth-dependent weighting functions, in the determination of pixel values in a volume rendering. The weighting functions may modify, for example, an intensity determination for a pixel, either directly or by modifying other contributing functions, such as for determining occlusion effects. The volume rendering may then be displayed for review by a technologist or clinician.

A method and a corresponding apparatus for volume rendering of medical data sets comprises a display (11) for displaying at least one slice view (12) of a medical data set (18) of an object, in particular a patient. A user selection unit (13, 14, 15) enables a user to select a position on a structure of interest (SOI) in the at least one displayed slice view (12), a volume rendering unit (16) for determines a volume rendering (17) of the structure of interest (SOI) based on one or more first parameters. The first parameters characterize the view of the displayed volume rendering (17, 31) of the structure of interest (SOI), the volume rendering (17, 31) of the structure of interest (SOI) being displayed on the display (11). In order to achieve good volumetric views of the medical data set (18) requiring reduced user input the volume rendering unit (16) is designed for determining the first parameters automatically by considering the user-selected position and one or more second parameters, the second parameters characterizing at least one of the object, the structure of interest (SOI), the currently displayed slice view (12) and one or more previous volume renderings (17) of the structure of interest (SOI), and the volume rendering unit (16) is designed for determining the first parameters in that way that an optimized view on the displayed volume rendering (17) of the structure of interest (SOI) is achieved without additional user input apart from the user-selection of the position.