FLOATING VOLUME-OF-INTEREST IN MULTILAYER VOLUME RAY CASTING

• US 20130063436A1
• Filed: 05/30/2012
• Published: 03/14/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 08/11/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Siemens Healthineers AG (Siemens AG)
• Original Assignee: Siemens Corp. (Siemens AG)
• Inventors: Li, Wei
• Granted Patent: US 9,390,557 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/423
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 15/00 3D [Three Dimensional] image rendering
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 15/08 Volume rendering
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 17/205 Re-meshing

Abstract

A method that includes receiving vertices of a mesh, wherein the mesh represents a volume of interest (VOI) from an original volume, performing a transformation operation on the mesh, wherein the transformation operation transforms vertices of the mesh, obtaining sampling locations of the original volume using the transformed vertices, performing an inverse transformation on the transformed vertices of the mesh and the sampling locations, and performing a ray casting on the original volume to produce an image, wherein the ray casting uses the transformed vertices and a result of the inverse transformation as input.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

receiving vertices of a mesh, wherein the mesh represents a volume of interest (VOI) from an original volume;

performing a transformation operation on the mesh, wherein the transformation operation transforms vertices of the mesh;

obtaining sampling locations of the original volume using the transformed vertices;

performing an inverse transformation on the transformed vertices of the mesh and the sampling locations; and

performing a ray casting on the original volume to produce an image, wherein the ray casting uses the transformed vertices and a result of the inverse transformation as input.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the transformation operation includes a translation, rotation, scaling, shearing, or mirroring.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising assigning a higher priority number to the VOI compared to other VOIs from the original volume.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein a crop-box or cut-plane in the original volume does not clip away the VOI with the higher priority.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

duplicating the vertices of the mesh to represent first and second VOIs of identical shapes;

rendering the first VOI with a color lookup table full of zeros so that the first VOI represents an empty region;

rendering the second VOI with the same color lookup table as a region outside the second VOI;

transforming the mesh of the second VOI so that it moves away from an original position and orientation; and

calculating sampling locations, which are used for rendering the second VOI, from the transformed mesh of the second VOI followed by an inverse transformation, so that these sampling locations are the same as those computed from an untransformed version of the mesh of the second VOI.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

duplicating the vertices of the mesh to represent first and second VOIs of identical shapes;

rendering the first VOI with a color lookup table different from voxels outside the first VOI;

rendering the second VOI with the same color lookup table as the first VOI;

transforming the mesh of the second VOI so that it moves away from an original position and orientation; and

calculating sampling locations, which are used for rendering the second VOI, from the transformed mesh of the second VOI followed by an inverse transformation, so that these sampling locations are the same as those computed from an untransformed version of the mesh of the second VOI.

7. A system, comprising:

a memory device for storing a program;

a processor in communication with the memory device, the processor operative with the program to;

receive vertices of a mesh, wherein the mesh represents a volume of interest (VOI) from an original volume;

perform a transformation operation on the mesh, wherein the transformation operation transforms vertices of the mesh;

obtain sampling locations of the original volume using the transformed vertices;

perform an inverse transformation on the transformed vertices of the mesh and the sampling locations; and

perform a ray casting on the original volume to produce an image, wherein the ray casting uses the transformed vertices and a result of the inverse transformation as input.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the transformation operation includes a translation, rotation, scaling, shearing, or mirroring.

9. The system of claim 7, wherein the processor is further operative with the program to assign a higher priority number to the VOI compared to other VOIs from the original volume.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein a crop-box or cut-plane in the original volume does not clip away the VOI with the higher priority.

11. The system of claim 7, wherein the processor is further operative with the program to:

duplicate the vertices of the mesh to represent first and second VOIs of identical shapes;

render the first VOI with a color lookup table full of zeros so that the first VOI represents an empty region;

render the second VOI with the same color lookup table as a region outside the second VOI;

transform the mesh of the second VOI so that it moves away from an original position and orientation; and

calculate sampling locations, which are used for rendering the second VOI, from the transformed mesh of the second VOI followed by an inverse transformation, so that these sampling locations are the same as those computed from an untransformed version of the mesh of the second VOI.

12. The system of claim 7, wherein the processor is further operative with the program to:

duplicate the vertices of the mesh to represent first and second VOIs of identical shapes;

render the first VOI with a color lookup table different from voxels outside the first VOI;

render the second VOI with the same color lookup table as the first VOI;

transform the mesh of the second VOI so that it moves away from an original position and orientation; and

calculate sampling locations, which are used for rendering the second VOI, from the transformed mesh of the second VOI followed by an inverse transformation, so that these sampling locations are the same as those computed from an untransformed version of the mesh of the second VOI.

13. A computer program product, comprising:

a non-transitory computer readable storage medium having computer readable program code embodied therewith, the computer readable program code comprising;

computer readable program code configured to perform the steps of;

receiving vertices of a mesh, wherein the mesh represents a volume of interest (VOI) from an original volume;

performing a transformation operation on the mesh, wherein the transformation operation transforms vertices of the mesh;

obtaining sampling locations of the original volume using the transformed vertices;

performing an inverse transformation on the transformed vertices of the mesh and the sampling locations; and

performing a ray casting on the original volume to produce an image, wherein the ray casting uses the transformed vertices and a result of the inverse transformation as input.

14. The computer program product of claim 13, wherein the transformation operation includes a translation, rotation, scaling, shearing, or mirroring.

15. The computer program product of claim 13, wherein the computer readable program code is further configured to perform the step of assigning a higher priority number to the VOI compared to other VOIs from the original volume.

16. The computer program product of claim 15, wherein a crop-box or cut-plane in the original volume does not clip away the VOI with the higher priority.

17. The computer program product of claim 13, wherein the computer readable program code is further configured to perform the steps of:

duplicating the vertices of the mesh to represent first and second VOIs of identical shapes;

rendering the first VOI with a color lookup table full of zeros so that the first VOI represents an empty region;

rendering the second VOI with the same color lookup table as a region outside the second VOI.

transforming the mesh of the second VOI so that it moves away from an original position and orientation; and

calculating sampling locations, which are used for rendering the second VOI, from the transformed mesh of the second VOI followed by an inverse transformation, so that these sampling locations are the same as those computed from an untransformed version of the mesh of the second VOI.

18. The computer program product of claim 13, wherein the computer readable program code is further configured to perform the steps of:

duplicating the vertices of the mesh to represent first and second VOIs of identical shapes;

rendering the first VOI with a color lookup table different from voxels outside the first VOI;

rendering the second VOI with the same color lookup table as the first VOI;

transforming the mesh of the second VOI so that it moves away from an original position and orientation; and

calculating sampling locations, which are used for rendering the second VOI, from the transformed mesh of the second VOI followed by an inverse transformation, so that these sampling locations are the same as those computed from an untransformed version of the mesh of the second VOI.