Texture coordinate generation of colonic surface meshes for surgical simulation

Simulation of surgical procedures requires visualisation of realistic geometric models of organs generated from 3D patient images. Significant improvements in visual realism can be obtained through appropriate surface texturing and shading. In this paper we present a novel technique for continuous surface parameterisation of colonic geometric models utilising surface voxel to centreline correspondences derived from Laplace´s equation. Our technique creates continuous texture coordinates which exhibit minimal distortion and which enable us to use advanced texturing and shading techniques. Experimental results from phantom volumes and real cases are detailed.