3D Surface Generation from Segmented Volumes
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Solution Overview
Problem
Medical image segmentation techniques struggle to render segmented volumes smoothly, often resulting in jagged or aliased surfaces due to the inability to efficiently convert voxel data into a renderable mesh structure.
Innovation Solution
A method involving multiple passes over segmented volumes to generate a quadrilateral mesh, where active cells are identified, and points are moved based on computed balanced curvature to create a smoothed mesh, facilitating smooth surface representation and rendering.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If a segmented volume is rendered directly from voxel data, then the rendering process is simple and fast, but the surface appears jagged and aliased instead of smooth
Solution Approach 1:
The patent divides the volume into overlapping cells, each containing multiple neighboring voxels. This segmentation allows the system to process and smooth surfaces locally within each cell while maintaining overall rendering efficiency, resolving the contradiction between simple rendering and smooth surface appearance.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent transitions from rendering volumetric data directly to generating a surface mesh representation. By converting the 3D voxel data into a 2D mesh structure that can be rendered efficiently, the system achieves both smooth surfaces and fast rendering performance.
2Manufacturing precision
If multiple passes are executed to generate and smooth a mesh surface, then surface smoothness is improved, but the processing time increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent performs preliminary processing by dividing the volume into overlapping cells and identifying active cells in advance. This preliminary organization enables subsequent smoothing passes to operate more efficiently on pre-processed data, reducing overall processing time while maintaining surface smoothness.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent executes a variable number of smoothing passes based on the specific requirements of each region. Rather than applying a fixed number of passes to the entire volume, the system adapts the processing intensity to local needs, optimizing the balance between surface quality and processing time.
Data Source
AI summary
Systems and methods for generating a three-dimensional surface from a segmented volume including a plurality of voxels are provided. The method includes executing a first pass over a plurality of cells to generate a list of active cells, and executing a second pass over the plurality of active cells to generate a quadrilateral mesh, the quadrilateral mesh including a plurality of points that define a plurality of quadrilaterals. The method further includes executing at least one additional pass over the quadrilateral mesh to generate a smoothed mesh, wherein executing the at least one additional pass includes computing, for at least one point, a balanced curvature for the at least one point based on curvatures at points that neighbor the at least one point and moving the at least one point to a new location based on the computed balanced curvature. The method further includes displaying the smoothed mesh.