Computer graphics in medicine: a survey

Increased interest is presently given to three-dimensional (3-D) medical applications due to simultaneous emergence of high-resolution imaging systems and computer graphics techniques. This paper intends to present a survey of this field together with discussion and prospective views. The general framework is composed of six parts: data acquisition and preprocessing, polygonal object representation, voxel description, system architecture, medical applications, and prospects. Data base acquisition includes characterization of imaging modalities and medical specificity. Preprocessing schemes are directed to improvements (filtering), windowing, and spatial anisotropy (linear or spline interpolation). The two following sections are devoted to descriptions of the main object representations. Particular emphasis is given to optimal contour approximation, surface triangulation, mathematical surfaces on one hand, and cuberille and voxel representations on the other. Display capabilities--hidden surface removal, surface normal shading, structure enhancement--and data base structuration--hierarchical and nonhierarchical (graph and tree encoding)--are, respectively, described. An overview of 3-D systems is further given (Section V), and features of medical applications are reviewed and gathered in basic functionalities, surgery, and radiotherapy specifications (Section VI). The last section provides some prospective views on reconstruction from a few projections, model-guided labeling, multimodality image overlay, and local image network. Some of these issues are illustrated by examples of 3-D images.