Brick-based fusion renderer
First Claim
1. A method for combining at least two unregistered three-dimensional (3D) image data sets to generate a composite image from the data sets, comprising:
- dividing each of the data sets into a plurality of bricks along three mutually orthogonal axes, wherein each brick is further subdivided into a plurality of blocks along the three mutually orthogonal axes;
merging the blocks into a hierarchical tree structure for each of the at least two data sets, with each block being a leaf node and a root of each tree structure being a union of all blocks that correspond to the data set;
expanding, using a computing device, one tree to cover a full space of the at least two 3D image data sets by adding an expanded root that covers all image data sets, and by adding internal expanded nodes for the other tree structures, wherein each expanded node has one or more boundary faces defined at infinity; and
traversing the expanded tree top down from the root to render the expanded data set, wherein each brick of an image data set volume is tested with all bricks of other image data sets whether they overlap, wherein if a common region exists, rendering is performed.
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Abstract
A method for combining at image data sets to generate a composite image. The method divides each of the data sets into a plurality of bricks along three mutually orthogonal axes. The method includes (a) building a hierarchical structure for each one of the at least two data sets, each structure comprising higher level blocks of voxels and lower level blocks of voxels, the higher level blocks having a larger number of voxels than the lower level blocks; (b) expanding boundaries of each one of the structures into corresponding expanded hierarchical structures, such boundary expanding comprising adding additional virtual processing bricks to the initial processing bricks, such virtual processing bricks comprising semi-unbounded blocks to provide the expanded boundaries of the expanded hierarchical structures; and (c) rendering each one of the bricks in each one of the expanded hierarchical structures into a two dimension image.
11 Citations
10 Claims
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1. A method for combining at least two unregistered three-dimensional (3D) image data sets to generate a composite image from the data sets, comprising:
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dividing each of the data sets into a plurality of bricks along three mutually orthogonal axes, wherein each brick is further subdivided into a plurality of blocks along the three mutually orthogonal axes; merging the blocks into a hierarchical tree structure for each of the at least two data sets, with each block being a leaf node and a root of each tree structure being a union of all blocks that correspond to the data set; expanding, using a computing device, one tree to cover a full space of the at least two 3D image data sets by adding an expanded root that covers all image data sets, and by adding internal expanded nodes for the other tree structures, wherein each expanded node has one or more boundary faces defined at infinity; and traversing the expanded tree top down from the root to render the expanded data set, wherein each brick of an image data set volume is tested with all bricks of other image data sets whether they overlap, wherein if a common region exists, rendering is performed. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5)
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6. A program storage device readable by a computer, tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by the computer to perform the method steps for combining at least two unregistered three-dimensional (3D) image data sets to generate a composite image from the data sets, comprising:
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dividing each of the data sets into a plurality of bricks along three mutually orthogonal axes, wherein each brick is further subdivided into a plurality of blocks along the three mutually orthogonal axes; merging the blocks into a hierarchical tree structure for each of the at least two data sets, with each block being a leaf node and a root of each tree structure being a union of all blocks that correspond to the data set; expanding one tree to cover a full space of the at least two 3D image data sets by adding an expanded root that covers all image data sets, and by adding internal expanded nodes for the other tree structures, wherein each expanded node has one or more boundary faces defined at infinity; and traversing the expanded tree top down from the root to render the expanded data set, wherein each brick of an image data set volume is tested with all bricks of other image data sets whether they overlap, wherein if a common region exists, rendering is performed. - View Dependent Claims (7, 8, 9, 10)
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Specification