Light path fusion for rendering surface and volume data in medical imaging
AssigneeSiemens Healthcare GmbH
InventorKaloian Petkov
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
For visualization in medical imaging, a hybrid volume and surface renderer uses unified path tracing. Rather than separately rasterizing the surface and path tracing the volume, a same path or set of paths is used for both the volume and the surface. The path tracing accounts for scattering by the surface as well as the volume. Given the repetition of stochastic scattering of many modeled photons or light rays, using stochastic scattering from the surface as part of the path tracing for the volume allows for two-way interaction between the surface and volume.
Claims19
A system for visualization of surface and volume information in medical imaging, the system comprising:
- a medical imaging system configured to scan an internal region of a patient and generate voxel data representing a volume comprising the internal region;
- a memory configured to store a three-dimensional surface within the volume;
- a renderer configured to generate a light ray path through the volume as part of path trace rendering, check for the three-dimensional surface along the light ray path, where the light ray path does not scatter or terminate based on the voxel data prior to the three-dimensional surface, and determine scatter from the three-dimensional surface;
- and
- a display configured to display a rendered image output by the renderer and based on the path-trace rendering, the rendered image representing the internal region and the three-dimensional surface,
- wherein the renderer is configured to provide two-way interaction between the volume and the three-dimensional surface.
A method for or visualization of surface and volume information in medical imaging, the method comprising:
- path tracing light rays through a volume with stochastic-based scattering for voxels of the volume;
- determining intersections of the light rays used for the path tracing with a surface positioned in the volume;
- stochastically scattering of the light rays from the surface for the intersections to provide a two-way interaction between the volume and the surface;
- and
- generating a medical image of the patient based on the path tracing and scattering for the voxels and for the surface.
A method for or visualization of surface and volume information in medical imaging, the method comprising:
- acquiring from a medical scanner voxels representing a patient volume;
- generating a light ray path of a plurality of different vectors through the patient volume, at least one of the vectors based on scatter from a surface positioned in the volume and at least one of the vectors based on scatter from a first voxel of the voxels, the generating providing a two-way interaction between the surface and the voxels;
- and
- generating an image from the light ray path.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.