System and method employing pipelined parallel circuit architecture for displaying surface structures of the interior region of a solid body
First Claim
1. A system for displaying two-dimensional images of internal surfaces of three-dimensional solid bodies, comprising:
- means for storing three-dimensional signal patterns representing the value of at least one physical property associated with a three-dimensional body at regularly spaced grid locations defining volume voxel elements within said body;
means for selectively accessing an entire voxel of values, represented by said signal patterns, from said storing means at one time;
parallel circuit means for testing said voxel values, as defined by vertex values, for intersections of said voxel with a preselected internal surface of said three-dimensional body;
parallel circuit means for subdividing only intersected voxels into sub-voxels;
parallel circuit means for testing values of each of said sub-voxels for intersections of said each sub-voxel with said preselected surface;
parallel circuit means for determining sub-voxel normal values only for those sub-voxels intersected by said preselected surface; and
display processor means for receiving sub-voxel coordinates and sub-voxel normal values, and for displaying said normal values on a screen, said displayed values representing an image of said preselected surface.
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Abstract
Arbitrary interior surfaces of a three-dimensional body are displayed from a regular array of values of at least one physical property in the interior of the body. The physical property measurements may be made with systems such as computerized tomographic x-ray, or magnetic resonance imaging. Highly parallel circuits and a highly parallel architecture permit generation of surface views in real time, i.e., sufficiently fast to support ongoing procedures such as surgical operations. These parallel circuits, realizable on large scale integrated circuit chips, perform surface normal calculations, linear interpolations and signal comparisons in simultaneously operating circuit paths which are asynchronously enabled when input data appear.
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Citations
22 Claims
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1. A system for displaying two-dimensional images of internal surfaces of three-dimensional solid bodies, comprising:
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means for storing three-dimensional signal patterns representing the value of at least one physical property associated with a three-dimensional body at regularly spaced grid locations defining volume voxel elements within said body; means for selectively accessing an entire voxel of values, represented by said signal patterns, from said storing means at one time; parallel circuit means for testing said voxel values, as defined by vertex values, for intersections of said voxel with a preselected internal surface of said three-dimensional body; parallel circuit means for subdividing only intersected voxels into sub-voxels; parallel circuit means for testing values of each of said sub-voxels for intersections of said each sub-voxel with said preselected surface; parallel circuit means for determining sub-voxel normal values only for those sub-voxels intersected by said preselected surface; and display processor means for receiving sub-voxel coordinates and sub-voxel normal values, and for displaying said normal values on a screen, said displayed values representing an image of said preselected surface. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
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11. A method for displaying two-dimensional images of internal surfaces of three-dimensional solid bodies, comprising:
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storing three-dimensional signal patterns representing the value of at least one physical property associated with a three-dimensional body at regularly spaced grid locations defining volume voxel elements within said body; selectively accessing an entire voxel of said values, represented by signal patterns, from said storing means at one time; testing a plurality of said voxel values, as defined by said vertex values, in parallel for intersections of said voxel with a preselected internal surface of said three-dimensional body; subdividing only intersected ones of said voxels into a plurality of sub-voxels in parallel; testing values of each of said sub-voxels, simultaneously and in parallel, for intersections of said each sub-voxel with said preselected surface; determining sub-voxel normal values in parallel only for those sub-voxels intersected by said preselected surface; and displaying said normal values such that said values being displayed represent an image of said preselected surface. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20)
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21. A processing system of pipeline circuit architecture for rapidly displaying a two-dimensional image of a three-dimensional data array comprising:
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a first circuit of pipeline configuration responsive to data values in said array, for simultaneously locating the position of a plurality of points on a surface of interest in said data array; and a second circuit of pipeline configuration in parallel with said first circuit of pipeline configuration, also responsive to said data values, for simultaneously establishing intensity of the displayed image at said plurality of points. - View Dependent Claims (22)
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Specification