Volume Rendering of Medical Scans in Virtual Reality

Student thesis: Master Thesis and HD Thesis

  • Mads Bang Hoffensetz
4. term, Medialogy, Master (Master Programme)
Medical scanners, such as CT- and MR- scanners, producea stackof 2D scans, each displayinga slice through the patient. Doctors inspect these scans separately or side by side when diagnosing the patient or planning the surgical procedure. We propose a system that combines the stack of 2D medical scans and uses volume visualization to render a 3D reconstruction of the scanned area of the patient in virtual reality. Alongside the volume visualization, we propose several tools that the doctors can use to explore the data. First is a menu from which the user can select preset transfer functions. Transfer functions areusedtomapthevolumedatatoalphaandcolor values. Second is a clipping plane that assigns different transfer functions to the part of the volume above the plane, e.g., rendering skin below and the skeleton above, or rendering everything above fully transparent to give a clear view of the slice. The user can freely position and orientate the clipping plane An evaluation with medical personnel showed that the participants were able to diagnose a patient purely based on the proposed system.
SpecialisationComputer Graphics
LanguageEnglish
Publication date2018
Number of pages42
ID: 280034035