Query Tools for Interactive Exploration of 3D Neuroimages: Cropping, Probe and Lens

Dynamic queries continuously update the data that is visualized in accordance with the user actions. They are typically applied for visual information seeking. This paper proposes to introduce this interaction style for exploring 3D medical neuroimages in its original form, enhancing visual seeking technology in a medical diagnostic procedure. More precisely, we present three dynamic query tools that allow the user to change the focus on-the-fly, while the surrounding tissue is preserved. They are a curvilinear cropper, a volumetric probe and a movable magnifying lens. Once information-preserving visualization is essential for accurate diagnosis and legal protection, the dataset is in its original form. The originality of our work relies on the input interface through which an expert can directly manipulate those tools on the raw data and the responsiveness of each displayed voxel by exploiting the power of GPUs. The proposed techniques have been integrated in a visualization prototype and were assessed by the neuroimaging experts, who were be able to identify subtle lesions in the brain.