DocumentCode :
1504983
Title :
Visual Exploration of Nasal Airflow
Author :
Zachow, Stefan ; Muigg, Philipp ; Hildebrandt, Thomas ; Doleisch, Helmut ; Hege, Hans-Christian
Author_Institution :
Zuse Inst. Berlin (ZIB), Berlin, Germany
Volume :
15
Issue :
6
fYear :
2009
Firstpage :
1407
Lastpage :
1414
Abstract :
Rhinologists are often faced with the challenge of assessing nasal breathing from a functional point of view to derive effective therapeutic interventions. While the complex nasal anatomy can be revealed by visual inspection and medical imaging, only vague information is available regarding the nasal airflow itself: Rhinomanometry delivers rather unspecific integral information on the pressure gradient as well as on total flow and nasal flow resistance. In this article we demonstrate how the understanding of physiological nasal breathing can be improved by simulating and visually analyzing nasal airflow, based on an anatomically correct model of the upper human respiratory tract. In particular we demonstrate how various information visualization (InfoVis) techniques, such as a highly scalable implementation of parallel coordinates, time series visualizations, as well as unstructured grid multi-volume rendering, all integrated within a multiple linked views framework, can be utilized to gain a deeper understanding of nasal breathing. Evaluation is accomplished by visual exploration of spatio-temporal airflow characteristics that include not only information on flow features but also on accompanying quantities such as temperature and humidity. To our knowledge, this is the first in-depth visual exploration of the physiological function of the nose over several simulated breathing cycles under consideration of a complete model of the nasal airways, realistic boundary conditions, and all physically relevant time-varying quantities.
Keywords :
biomedical imaging; data analysis; data visualisation; flow visualisation; interactive systems; medical computing; rendering (computer graphics); time series; complex nasal anatomy; information visualization technique; medical imaging; nasal airflow visual exploration; nasal breathing; physiological nasal breathing; rhinologists; rhinomanometry; spatio-temporal airflow characteristics; therapeutic interventions; time series visualization; unstructured grid multivolume rendering; visual inspection; Analytical models; Anatomy; Biomedical imaging; Humans; Humidity; Immune system; Inspection; Medical simulation; Temperature; Visualization; Flow visualization; exploratory data analysis; interactive visual analysis of scientific data; interactive visualFlow visualization; time-dependent data.; Computer Graphics; Computer Simulation; Humans; Humidity; Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; Models, Anatomic; Nose; Pulmonary Ventilation; Respiration; Temperature; Tomography, X-Ray Computed;
fLanguage :
English
Journal_Title :
Visualization and Computer Graphics, IEEE Transactions on
Publisher :
ieee
ISSN :
1077-2626
Type :
jour
DOI :
10.1109/TVCG.2009.198
Filename :
5290755
Link To Document :
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