Event Abstract Back to Event New perspectives in visualisation for neuroimaging David Barnes1*, Gary Egan2, Parnesh Raniga2 and Owen Kaluza3 1 Monash Biomedical Imaging & Monash e-Research Centre (Monash University), Australia 2 Monash Biomedical Imaging (Monash University), Australia 3 Monash e-Research Centre & Monash Biomedical Imaging (Monash University), Australia Scientific discovery depends critically on the visualisation of data. Visualisation has a special role in imaging experiments, specifically, the comprehension and analysis of data, and the communication of outcomes. Our ability to derive new knowledge from increasingly large and more detailed images depends on understanding, applying and advancing appropriate visualisation strategies to the data at hand. In neuroimaging, visualisation techniques are ordinarily applied to 3-dimensional images, or time-evolving (4-d) images, yet the communication and publication of study outcomes routinely depends on static, 2-d representations of 3-d or 4-d phenomena. This predicament is not unique to the neuroimaging discipline. However the constraints of 2-d display media have influenced the development of data analysis and visualisation techniques for neuroimaging. For example: (1) techniques for flattening the cortical surface (e.g. Fischl et al., 1999, http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/nimg.1998.0396 ) are in significant part motivated by the difficulty of visualising a highly folded and warped sheet; (2) the ubiquitous red, green, blue shading of diffusion tensor images to show left-right, anteroposterior and superior-inferior white matter fibre direction indeed allows the encoding of 3-d information in a 2-d figure, but the result cannot be fully interpreted by 5-10% of the community (the red-green colour-blind). We have developed tools that directly address the broad challenge of publishing 3-d and 4-d scientific data (including images) as fully-interactive figures within Adobe PDF documents (Barnes & Fluke, 2008, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.newast.2008.03.008 ; Ruthensteiner et al., 2010, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.micron.2010.03.010 ). No special viewing software is required, and 3-d PDF figures can now be generated using free software. Here, we present our technique applied to standard neuroimaging data: 3-d MR images, 4-d fMRI images, cortical surfaces, diffusion tensor images and derived datasets. We describe how publishing and communicating using interactive, 3-d figures, allows us to begin addressing some of the shortcomings evident in discipline-specific visualisation and analysis: is cortical flattening necessary when we can directly publish and visualise complex, 3-d surface structures as figures in PDF articles? Are RGB fibre maps appropriate when we can directly publish a less-derived, more meaningful 3-d tensor image within an academic paper? Keywords: Neuroimaging Conference: 5th INCF Congress of Neuroinformatics, Munich, Germany, 10 Sep - 12 Sep, 2012. Presentation Type: Demo Topic: Neuroinformatics Citation: Barnes D, Egan G, Raniga P and Kaluza O (2014). New perspectives in visualisation for neuroimaging. Front. Neuroinform. Conference Abstract: 5th INCF Congress of Neuroinformatics. doi: 10.3389/conf.fninf.2014.08.00123 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 21 Mar 2013; Published Online: 27 Feb 2014. * Correspondence: Dr. David Barnes, Monash Biomedical Imaging & Monash e-Research Centre (Monash University), Melbourne, Australia, david.g.barnes@monash.edu Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers David Barnes Gary Egan Parnesh Raniga Owen Kaluza Google David Barnes Gary Egan Parnesh Raniga Owen Kaluza Google Scholar David Barnes Gary Egan Parnesh Raniga Owen Kaluza PubMed David Barnes Gary Egan Parnesh Raniga Owen Kaluza Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.