Title :
The Medical Exploration Toolkit: An Efficient Support for Visual Computing in Surgical Planning and Training
Author :
Mühler, Konrad ; Tietjen, Christian ; Ritter, Felix ; Preim, Bernhard
Author_Institution :
Inst. of Simulation & Graphics, Otto-von-Guericke Univ., Magdeburg, Germany
Abstract :
Application development is often guided by the usage of software libraries and toolkits. For medical applications, the toolkits currently available focus on image analysis and volume rendering. Advanced interactive visualizations and user interface issues are not adequately supported. Hence, we present a toolkit for application development in the field of medical intervention planning, training, and presentation-the MEDICALEXPLORATIONTOOLKIT (METK). The METK is based on the rapid prototyping platform MeVisLab and offers a large variety of facilities for an easy and efficient application development process. We present dedicated techniques for advanced medical visualizations, exploration, standardized documentation, and interface widgets for common tasks. These include, e.g., advanced animation facilities, viewpoint selection, several illustrative rendering techniques, and new techniques for object selection in 3D surface models. No extended programming skills are needed for application building, since a graphical programming approach can be used. The toolkit is freely available and well documented to facilitate the use and extension of the toolkit.
Keywords :
computer based training; data visualisation; medical computing; rendering (computer graphics); 3D surface model; METK software tool; MeVisLab platform; advanced animation facility; graphical programming approach; illustrative rendering technique; image analysis; interface widget; medical exploration; medical exploration toolkit; medical intervention planning; medical standardized documentation; medical visualization; rapid prototyping platform based system; software library; surgical planning; surgical training; viewpoint selection; visual computing support; volume rendering; Visualization applications; graphical programming.; life and medical sciences; medical visualization; software engineering; software library; visualization techniques and methodologies; Animals; Computer Graphics; Computer Simulation; Computer-Assisted Instruction; Humans; Imaging, Three-Dimensional; Models, Biological; Software; Surgery, Computer-Assisted; User-Computer Interface;
Journal_Title :
Visualization and Computer Graphics, IEEE Transactions on
DOI :
10.1109/TVCG.2009.58