Volume Graphics: What's in the cards... Michael Meissner (Viatronix)

Volume Graphics: What's in the cards...Michael Meissner (Viatronix) VG 2005

9 (10?) key questions from 1999 • What’s in the cards? • In which cards??? • Well, it really depends on the perspective • In the following: medical applications VG 2005

Medical Applications Where do physicians use VG? • Diagnostic tool (Unable to automatically tell what’s wrong, 3D is ordered in < 5% of all cases because it is time consuming and difficult) • Treatment planning tool (what to do?). • Verification tool (automatic detection) • Interdisciplinary communication tool VG 2005

Medical Applications Observations: • Scientists: explorative visualization (understand problem and find solution) • End-users: 1, 2, or 3 clicks to get to the goal (simplicity!!!)(make solution available, robust, reproducible) • Strong NEED for automation, consisting of: • Segmentation • Detection • Guidance • Visualization (1D, 2D, 3D, 4D?)  only fraction of the problem • Etc. • Where is this (VG) research and what of it is engineering? VG 2005

9 (10?) key questions from 1999 On the initial questions: • Volumes vs. surfaces? Rectilinear, curved, irregular, etc. • Definition of reflection, refraction, etc.? (amorphous) • Concepts to unify modelling & rendering  API • Voxel-based radiosity? Feasible? Advantages? • Force & touch with volume data? (Deformation?) • Volume based digitisation? • Frequency domain representations fast enough? • Availability of real-time volume rendering? • Impact of VG onto other fields? VG 2005

Feasability 9 (10?) key questions from 1999 Availability of real-time volume rendering? • CPU, GPU, and dedicated hardware able to deal with 2563 voxels (up to 5123?) • This will continue to improve but: • CPUs already slow down • GPUs will slow down, too • Parallel rendering: unavoidable!!! • Multiple CPU cores  Intel, AMD, IBM (Cell) • Will it be SIMD or MIMD? • In the future, where is difference of CPU/GPU? VG 2005

9 (10?) key questions from 1999 Availability of real-time volume rendering? • APIs limited: • High-level: Volumizer, TGS Inventor • Low-level: OpenGL, DirectX • Related libraries limited: • Vtk, Itk, ? VG 2005

9 (10?) key questions from 1999 What would it take to make it verifiable? • Reference: • Datasets  but also what to look for!!! (app domain) • Transfer functions • View ports • Renderings • Etc. • Framework to build on top/plug into needed!!!(but where should it come from? Who should be gate keeper?) • Research community might not capable of this? VG 2005

9 (10?) key questions from 1999 Impact of VG onto other fields? • Who is impacting who? Apps <> VG • Is VG is (becoming) application specific • VG has become integral part in medicine but only for a fraction of cases because there are simple alternative solutions. • A (classical) volume rendered image is not necessarily most meaningful. Simplicity!!! VG 2005

Impact of VG: radiology Asking radiologists about the most important innovations of the last decade: • MIP • Thin slab • … • … • 3D Primary reason: too many slices to review VG 2005

Future What is in the cards: • Larger data: 16 bit 10243 datasets (64 bit OS) • Multi-resolution volume rendering • Memory management • Parallelism • Multi-modality scans: • Fusion • Registration • Non Photo-realistic rendering!!! • Segmentation • User interfaces VG 2005

If we accomplish to work with theapplication domain then we might get: VG 2005

9 (10?) key questions from 1999 What is going on in medical applications? Previously: dedicated high-end workstations Hot (current) trend is client/server: • Expensive high-end VG  server based • (Thin) client machines already available (& cheap) • Network is an issue, WWW is a problem • Deployment solely dependent on networks VG 2005

Volume Graphics: What's in the cards... Michael Meissner (Viatronix)