<title>Real-time auto-stereoscopic visualization of 3D medical images</title>

Abstract

The work here described regards multi-viewer auto- stereoscopic visualization of 3D models of anatomical structures and organs of the human body. High-quality 3D models of more than 1600 anatomical structures have been reconstructed using the Visualization Toolkit, a freely available C++ class library for 3D graphics and visualization. 2D images used for 3D reconstruction comes from the Visible Human Data Set. Auto-stereoscopic 3D image visualization is obtained using a prototype monitor developed at Philips Research Labs, UK. This special multiview 3D-LCD screen has been connected directly to a SGI workstation, where 3D reconstruction and medical imaging applications are executed. Dedicated software has been developed to implement multiview capability. A number of static or animated contemporary views of the same object can simultaneously be seen on the 3D-LCD screen by several observers, having a real 3D perception of the visualized scene without the use of extra media as dedicated glasses or head-mounted displays. Developed software applications allow real-time interaction with visualized 3D models, didactical animations and movies have been realized as well.