Visualization of multimodality cardiac imagery

The methods and results associated with a research program aimed at quantifying and visualizing the unified anatomic and physiologic information obtained from two complementary imaging modalities-structural information describing coronary vessel anatomy and functional information related to heart muscle physiology-are presented and discussed. The reconstruction, processing, and visualization of three-dimensional cardiovascular structure, including the procedures and results obtained from phantom and patient studies, are emphasized. The visualization methodology is designed to convey a significant amount of multimodality information in a single, meaningful display. The methodology is also designed to quantify the visualized information and to provide the information both visually and textually. Hence, both objective and subjective assessments of medical information are possible in complementary forms and in interactive fashions.