Adapted morphing model for 3D volume reconstruction applied to abdominal CT images

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to develop a 3D volume reconstruction model for volume rendering and apply this model to abdominal CT data. The model development includes two steps: (1) interpolation of given data for a complete 3D model, and (2) visualization. First, CT slices are interpolated using a special morphing algorithm. The main idea of this algorithm is to take a region from one CT slice and locate its most probable correspondence in the adjacent CT slice. The algorithm determines the transformation function of the region in between two adjacent CT slices and interpolates the data accordingly. The most probable correspondence of a region is obtained using correlation analysis between the given region and regions of the adjacent CT slice. By applying this technique recursively, taking progressively smaller subregions within a region, a high quality and accuracy interpolation is obtained. The main advantages of this morphing algorithm are 1) its applicability not only to parallel planes like CT slices but also to general configurations of planes in 3D space, and 2) its fully automated nature as it does not require control points to be specified by a user compared to most morphing techniques. Subsequently, to visualize data, a specialized volume rendering card (TeraRecon VolumePro 1000) was used. To represent data in 3D space, special software was developed to convert interpolated CT slices to 3D objects compatible with the VolumePro card. Visual comparison between the proposed model and linear interpolation clearly demonstrates the superiority of the proposed model.