Method for evaluating three-dimensional rendering systems

• US 6,400,841 B1
• Filed: 02/11/1999
• Issued: 06/04/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 02/11/1999
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: General Electric Company
• Original Assignee: General Electric Company
• Inventors: Khoury, Issa Y.
• Primary Examiner(s): Au, Amelia M.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Dastouri, Mehrdad
• Application Number:
  US09/248,548
• Time in Patent Office: 1,209 Days
• Field of Search: 382/154, 382/128, 382/131, 382/132, 382/218, 382/219, 382/220, 345/419, 345/424
• US Class Current: 382/154
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 15/00 3D [Three Dimensional] image rendering
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/10072 Tomographic images
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/30168 Image quality inspection
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/0004 Industrial image inspection

Abstract

A method of automatically evaluating settings for three dimensional rendering engines establishes a mathematical equivalency to image quality such as may be RMS error. With this mathematical index, a gold standard setting may be established and used to compare clinical images with other settings. The image qualities for different settings may be fit to a functional model so as to provide rapid assessment of the affect on image quality of parameter adjustments. The time-cost for producing the image may also be fit to a surface to allow more complex time/image quality trade offs to be realized.

Claims

1. A method for evaluating a three-dimensional rendering system employing a rendering engine having predetermined operating settings, the method comprising the steps of:

(a) collecting three-dimensional image data;

(b) identifying a set of parameters affecting an image quality of two dimensional images produced by the rendering system;

(c) generating a set of two-dimensional images using the rendering system operating on the three-dimensional image data using different parameters of the set of parameters;

(d) producing for each two-dimensional image a mathematical index related to the image quality of the two-dimensional image; and

(e) fitting a functional relationship to the mathematical index and the parameters so as to allow rapid evaluation of the affect of a change in parameter on image quality;

(f) generating synthetic three-dimensional image data; and

wherein step (d) generates the mathematical index by comparing each two-dimensional image to an optimized two-dimensional image of the three-dimensional image data generated by using parameters obtained from evaluation of the synthetic three-dimensional image data.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the mathematical index is the root mean square of the-difference between each two-dimensional image and the corresponding optimized two-dimensional image.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the optimized parameters are those providing images of the synthetic three-dimensional image data having the greatest image energy in the test images.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the parameters obtained from evaluation of synthetic three-dimensional image data are those providing test images of the synthetic three-dimensional image data having least variation in image energy between the test images.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the synthetic three-dimensional image data is constructed to have no overlapping data elements in projections to the two-dimensional images.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the parameters are operation settings of a rendering engine.

7. The method of claim 5 wherein the parameters are selected from the group consisting of:

interpolation type, projection angle, sampling distance, ray density, aspect ratio of data, and window size.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the parameters are different rendering engines.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein at step (c) the generated two-dimensional images include images at different projection angles for each different parameter of the set of parameters.

11. The method of claim 2, wherein the synthetic three-dimensional image data includes at least one of data that is artificially generated by a computer and data concerning a real object.

10. A method for evaluating a three-dimensional rendering system employing a rendering engine having predetermined operating settings, the method comprising the steps of:

(a) collecting three-dimensional image data;

(b) identifying a set of parameters affecting an image quality of two dimensional images produced by the rendering system;

(c) generating a set of two-dimensional images using the rendering system operating on the three-dimensional image data using different parameters of the set of parameters;

(d) producing for each two-dimensional image a mathematical index related to the image quality of the two-dimensional image; and

(e) fitting a functional relationship to the mathematical index and the parameters so as to allow rapid evaluation of the affect of a change in parameter on image quality;

(f) producing for each two-dimensional image, a time-cost value related to its parameters and indicating the time required to generate the image; and

(g) fitting a functional relationship to the time-cost values so as to allow rapid evaluation of the affect of a change in parameter on time-cost.