著者

周藤 安造

出版者

東海大学

雑誌

東海大学紀要. 開発工学部 (ISSN:09177612)

巻号頁・発行日

pp.87-96, 1992-03-30

被引用文献数

1

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Recently, there has been much research into volume rendering as a new technique for visualizing the three-dimensional structures of the human body. Here, we define volume data as either continuous or discrete data, describing surfaces and internal structures. Discrete data in generally represented as an array of voxels with values representing a measured quantity such as X-ray CT number. Continuous data is described using functions defined over a spatial domain. To render the volume, we first assign an opacity and a color value (with separate red, green and blue components) to each voxel. Then, the internal structure is visualized by casting rays through the volume. By changing the opacity and color values, the appearance of the internal structure can be varied. However, there are some problems associated with volume rendering such as the large data sets, long processing times, etc. This paper systematically summarizes volume rendering methods used in medical applications, especially computer simulations using X-ray CT data, evaluates the usefulness of the methods, and describes likely future developments.