Data visualization and display

Abstract

This chapter introduces the visualization and display technologies that are currently being employed in clinical applications, as well as techniques that have the potential to enhance and provide improved diagnostic capabilities. In 3D visualization of biomedical data, there are four common techniques that may be used to maximize the visual information, and these are surface rendering, direct volume rendering, texture-based volume rendering, and multivariate rendering. In 3D, navigation is based on movement of the volume with an additional z-axis. Data with even greater dimensions, such as multivariate data, demand additional interactive features and input devices for efficient control. Enhancement and manipulation techniques applied to 2D slice images, such as filtering, segmentation, and geometrical transformation, can also be extended and applied to 3D image volumes. When extended into the 3D domain, additional information is available, and this therefore generally allows for more accurate methods. It also highlights some of the solutions for optimizing volume-rendering visualization of large biomedical data. In the visualization of dual-modality PET/CT, the PET images provide high sensitivity in tumor detection and tissue characterization. The effectiveness of all diagnostic imaging visualization is affected by the quality of the display devices. Modern visualization and display technologies enable the development of clinical applications that provide new approaches for interacting with and interpreting biomedical data, such as in virtual biopsy, motion activity visualization, and applications in radiotherapy planning. © 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.