Real-time multimodal medical image processing: a dynamic volume-rendering application

A system for medical image processing has been proposed, which allows multimodal dynamic three-dimensional (3-D) visualization interactively and in real time. The system has been conceived to support medical specialists in the diagnosis of moving organs, such as the heart during the cardiac cycle, allowing them to compare information on perfusion/contraction match as a basis for diagnosis of important cardiovascular diseases. The 3-D volume rendering algorithm runs on a SIMD machine because of the great amount of data to be manipulated by always using the same operations. One of the features of the algorithm is the possibility to change, interactively, image processing and visualization parameters at any step, and to perform simple and effective image manipulations. Performance studies have demonstrated a very high global efficiency in practical situations by using typical data-volume dimensions. The system has been tested in the medical environment, by using magnetic resonance (MR) and single-photon emission-computed tomographic (SPECT) images.