Intrinsic Medical Imaging, LLC

Lee R McKenzie

Mark C McKenzie

Amy Steffek

A machine-implemented display method that, with respect to a volume dataset being rendered, enables a user to navigate to any position in space and look in any direction. Preferably, the volume dataset is derived from a computer tomography (CT) or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan. With the described approach, the user can see details within the dataset that are not available using conventional visualization approaches. The freedom-of-motion capability allows the user to go to places (positions) within the volume rendering that are not otherwise possible using conventional 'orbit' and 'zoom' display techniques. Thus, for example, using the described approach, the display image enables a user to travel inside physical structures (e.g., a patient's heart, brain, arteries, and the like). In this approach, a display image includes information visually representing an amount of difference between a current pixel and its neighbor pixels.

Heterogeneous rendering

A GPU-based cloud computing platform is used to facilitate data computations on behalf of requesting users. In this embodiment, a user of a thin client has an associated dataset that requires computation. That dataset is adapted to be delivered to a computing platform, such as the GPU-based cloud, for computation, such as to facilitate a 3D volume rendering. The result of the computation is then returned to the user. Multiple such users may be operating clients and requesting computations from the cloud in a similar manner, possibly concurrently.

Volume rendering using scalable GPU-based cloud computing

A machine-implemented display method that, with respect to a volume dataset being rendered, enables a user to navigate to any position in space and look in any direction. An enhanced display method for this type of dataset improves upon known Maximum Intensity Projection (MIP) techniques. The enhanced method, 'Relative MIP,' uses a different approach to pixel value rendering. Relative MIP draws information from an amount of difference present between a current pixel and its neighbors, and then visualizes the maximum intensity of this difference.

Relative maximum intensity projection

A machine-implemented display method that, with respect to a volume dataset being rendered, enables a user to navigate to any position in space and look in any direction. Preferably, the volume dataset is derived from a computer tomography (CT) or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan. With the described approach, the user can see details within the dataset that are not available using conventional visualization approaches. The freedom-of-motion capability allows the user to go to places (positions) within the volume rendering that are not otherwise possible using conventional 'orbit' and 'zoom' display techniques. Thus, for example, using the described approach, the display image enables a user to travel inside physical structures (e.g., a patient's heart, brain, arteries, and the like).

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Howell, MI, United States of America

Lee R McKenzie