Principles and current possibilities of virtual scenarios for surgery planning
Englmeier, K.H.; Haubner, M.; Krapichler, C.
Langenbecks Archiv für Chirurgie. Supplement. Kongressband. Deutsche Gesellschaft für Chirurgie. Kongress 115: 93-100
1998
ISSN/ISBN: 0942-2854 PMID: 9931589 Document Number: 496896
This paper describes several new visualization and interaction techniques that enable the use of virtual environments for routine medical purposes. A new volume-rendering method supports shaded and transparent visualization of medical image sequences in real-time with an interactive threshold definition. Based on these rendering algorithms a segmentation approach offers intuitive assistance for a wide range of requirements in diagnosis and therapy planning. In addition, a hierarchical data representation for geometric surface descriptions guarantees optimal use of available hardware resources and prevents inaccurate visualization. Applications such as virtual endoscopy are described.