System and method for displaying oblique planar cross sections of a solid body using tri-linear interpolation to determine pixel position dataes

A method for displaying two-dimensional cross-sectional images of three-dimensional data arrays, said method comprising the steps of:

• storing three-dimensional signal patterns representing the value of at least one physical property associated with a three-dimensional body at regularly spaced parallelepiped grid locations defining volume elements within said body;
• defining a plane of picture element positions of a preselected position density which density corresponds to the desired resolution of an ultimately displayed cross-sectional image;
• translating said plane of picture element positions to correspond with an arbitrarily chosen cut plane through said body;
• determining the physical property values for each said translated picture element position by tri-linear interpolation between the immediately surrounding ones of said signal pattern values defining the volume element in which said picture element is located;
• and
• receiving said translated picture element positions and said corresponding interpolated picture element values in a display processor operating to display said values on a screen, the displayed values representing said cross-sectional image.

A system for displaying cross-sectional images of a three-dimensional body, said system comprising:

• means for storing a three-dimensional array of values of at least one physical property at regularly located points in the interior of said body;
• means for translating a planar array of pixel positions to correspond with an arbitrarily selected cut plane through said body;
• means for tri-linearly interpolating a value for each said translated pixel position from the voxel vertex values surrounding said translated pixel position;
• and
• means for displaying said interpolated values.

A method for displaying cross-sectional images of a three-dimensional body for which an array of values of a physical property are available, said method comprising the steps of:

• translating a planar array of pixel positions to correspond with an arbitrarily selected cut plane through said body;
• tri-linearly interpolating a value for each translated pixel position from the array of values immediately surrounding that translated pixel position;
• and
• displaying said interpolated values.

A system for displaying two-dimensional images of three-dimensional data arrays, said system comprising:

• means for storing an array of signal values representing the value of a physical property at each of a plurality of grid positions within a three-dimensional body;
• means for selecting a viewing surface for viewing the internal structure of said three-dimensional body;
• means for tri-linearly interpolating picture element values at each of a plurality of picture element positions substantially on said viewing surface from the physical values in each said array surrounding each respective one of said picture element positions;
• and
• means for displaying said picture element values at corresponding picture element positions on said viewing surface.

A method for displaying two-dimensional images of three-dimensional data arrays, said method comprising the steps of:

• storing an array of signal values representing the value of a physical property at each of a plurality of grid positions within a three-dimensional body;
• selecting a viewing surface for viewing the internal structure of said three-dimensional body;
• tri-linearly interpolating picture element values at each of a plurality of picture element positions substantially on said viewing surface from the physical values in each said array surrounding each respective one of said picture element positions;
• and
• displaying said picture element values on a display device at display positions corresponding to said picture element positions on said viewing surface.