Open sources three-dimensional ultrasound volumetric rendering in object oriented approach

Abstract

On account of the advanced technology in recent years, the increasing demand for an effective medical imaging system has addressed its significance in diagnosis especially in the development of three-dimensional medical image reconstruction. Based on literature revise on various computational investigated, none of them show efficiency in terms of cost and computing performance. Owing to this fact, a method of 3D ultrasound volume reconstruction and rendering using Visualization Toolkit (VTK) has been proposed in this paper. The 3D reconstruction has been achieved through a series of computerized processes includes DICOM sources manipulation, grey interpolations, ray casting and volume rendering. Volunteered subject scanned on carotid arteries were collected. Experimental simulations were taking place on a maximum 256 numbers of two dimensional ultrasonic slices in DICOM storage. The result obtained indicates that VTK is an efficient open source library in performing 3D restoration especially in the matter of volume rendering. Internal structure of carotid arteries can be examined explicitly in any orientation. Within several virtual slicing features, such as slider, double side slider and box widget, it allows certain region-of-interest (ROI) visualization. The method proposed has shown its future utilities in clinical application especially in CT, MRI and Ultrasound images, in order to provide a more informative view for hospital personnel performing a more significant diagnosis.   Key words: Three dimensional, reconstruction, visualization toolkit (VTK), volume, rendering, medical imaging, ultrasound, open sources.