Fast Hardware-Accelerated Volume Rendering of CT Scans

Author

Liang, Ronghua ; Pan, Zhigeng ; Krokos, Meleagros ; Chen, Mao ; Bao, Jiarui ; Li, Cheng

Author_Institution

Coll. of Inf. Eng., Zhejiang Univ. of Technol., Hangzhou

Volume

4

Issue

4

fYear

2008

Firstpage

431

Lastpage

436

Abstract

As CT scanning is a very common medical imaging method, we propose new hardware-based algorithms using GPU (Graphical Processor Unit) programming for rapid visualization. Firstly, 3D volumes are constructed from CT scans. Then volume rendering is used to display anatomical structures via algorithms founded on improved ray casting and 2D textures. Our methods achieve interactive rendering rates and require an ordinary PC with an off-the-shelf graphics card. We expect our approach to be useful to medical practitioners for handling modern, large-scale medical datasets.

Keywords

computerised tomography; image reconstruction; image texture; medical image processing; rendering (computer graphics); 2D textures; 3D volume construction; CT scans; GPU; anatomical structures; graphical processor unit programming; hardware-accelerated volume rendering; hardware-based algorithms; interactive rendering rates; large-scale medical datasets; medical imaging method; medical practitioners; off-the-shelf graphics card; ordinary PC; rapid visualization; ray casting; Biomedical imaging; Casting; Computed tomography; Data visualization; Hospitals; Large-scale systems; Magnetic resonance imaging; Medical diagnostic imaging; Programming profession; Rendering (computer graphics); 2D textures; CT scanning; GPU programming; large-scale datasets; medical visualization; ray-casting; volume rendering;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Display Technology, Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1551-319X

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/JDT.2008.2002223

Filename

4670085