Preserving Sharp Edges with Volume Clipping

Volume clipping is a useful aid for exploring volumetric datasets. To maximize the effectiveness of this technique, the clipping geometry should be flexibly specified and the resulting images should not contain artifacts due to the clipping techniques. We present an improvement to an existing illumination model for volume clipping to allow sharp edges in the data to stay visible. These sharp edges often originate from material transitions in the volume or structures being partially cut by the clipping geometry. The focus is on high, industrial image quality and flexibility of the algorithm; techniques for using high-resolution polygonal meshes as clipping algorithms and removal of artifacts are presented. Features of the latest consumer graphics hardware are exploited to provide the visualization at an interactive framerate without the need for multipassing. We have validated the techniques presented here by implementing them in the context of a professional volume rendering application at Philips Medical Systems, and comparing our results with current results produced by existing solutions.

Visualization of voxel data

\u3cp\u3eThe invention relates to visualization of medical images, and in embodiments to the visualization of the left ventricle of the human heart or other organs. A method of visualizing one or more sets of voxel data is disclosed. The method comprising: providing one or more sets of voxel data, providing and segmenting the voxel data in accordance with a segment model. The segmented voxel data is reformatted to fit a reference shape (20) being defined by at least an inner (22) reference surface and an outer (23) reference surface. The reformatted voxel data is mapped to a target shape being defined by at least a first (29) target surface and a second (200) target surface. The target shape is moreover visualized. The mapping of the reformatted voxel data to a target shape is a mapping of one or more property values from the inner reference surface to the first target surface, and from the outer reference surface to the second target surface, and where a direction (26, 27) extending along the inter-surface distance of the reference shape is maintained in the target shape.\u3c/p\u3