Preparation and display of derived series of medical images
View Patent ↗Certain embodiments of the invention provide a computer apparatus and corresponding computer implement method for slab rendering from a three dimensional (3D) image data set of voxel data. Slab rendering is carried out on a stack of slabs of the same thicknesses in the 3D image data set. The whole stack of slabs is rendered together according to a desired filtering operation by applying a one dimensional van-Herk-Gil-Werman (vHGW) algorithm having a segment size one less than the slab thickness to strings of data that run through the whole stack.
1. A computer apparatus comprising:
a memory operable to store a three dimensional (3D) image data set of voxel data occupying a volume; and
a slab image rendering application operable to:
define a stack of overlapping slabs of a same thicknesses in the 3D image data set;
apply a one dimensional vHGW algorithm having a segment size defined by a slab thickness to strings of data that run through the stack, the one dimensional vHGW algorithm includes partitioning the data into overlapping segments or kernel of a fixed size, computing filtering operation using a scalar operator for each position of the slab in the stack, and merging accumulation values according to a binary operation for each position of the slab in the stack, thereby to generate corresponding strings of filtered data, each filtered datum representing a pixel in a two dimensional (2D) image data set composited from one of the slabs; and
output a stack of the 2D image data sets from the stack of overlapping slabs.
2. The computer apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the filtering operation uses a vector operator.
3. The computer apparatus of claim 2 , wherein the filtering operation is volume rendering and the vector operator includes an opacity element and either a grayscale element or a set of color elements.
4. The computer apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the data to which the one dimensional vHGW algorithm is applied is obtained by interpolation from the voxel data.
5. An image acquisition device comprising a computer apparatus according to claim 1 .
6. The computer apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the scalar operator is one of: maximum intensity projection, minimum intensity projection and average intensity projection.
7. A computer automated image processing method for volume data sets comprising:
providing a three dimensional (3D) image data set of voxel data occupying a volume;
defining a stack of slabs of a same thicknesses in the 3D image data set; and
applying a one dimensional vHGW algorithm having a segment size defined by a slab thickness to strings of data that run through the stack, the one dimensional vHGW algorithm includes partitioning the data into overlapping segments or kernel of a fixed size, computing filtering operation using a scalar operator for each position of the slab in the stack, and merging accumulation values according to a binary operation for each position of the slab in the stack, thereby to generate corresponding strings of filtered data, each filtered datum representing a pixel in a 2D image data set composited from one of the slabs; and
outputting a stack of two dimensional (2D) image data sets from the stack of overlapping slabs.
8. The method of claim 7 , wherein the filtering operation uses a vector operator.
9. The method of claim 8 , wherein the filtering operation is volume rendering and the vector operator includes an opacity element and either a grayscale element or a set of color elements.
10. The method of claim 7 , wherein the data to which the one dimensional vHGW algorithm is applied is obtained by interpolation from the voxel data.
11. A non-transitory computer readable medium having a computer program recorded thereon, the computer program configured to perform the method of claim 7 when executed on a computer.
12. The method of claim 7 , wherein the scalar operator is one of: maximum intensity projection, minimum intensity projection and average intensity projection.