Color Rendering in Medical Extended-Reality Applications.

Area of Science:

• Medical Visualization
• Extended Reality (XR)
• Computer Graphics

Background:

• Cross-platform development of medical applications for extended-reality (XR) head-mounted displays (HMDs) often utilizes game engines.
• Standardization of color characterization in medical visualizations across different rendering models and platforms remains a challenge.
• Inconsistent color representation can impact the accuracy and reliability of medical data presented in XR environments.

Purpose of the Study:

• To examine the transfer of color properties through rendering pipelines in the Unity engine for XR medical applications.
• To quantify color differences introduced by various rendering configurations and texture import settings.
• To provide a basis for standardizing and optimizing color consistency in medical XR visualizations.

Main Methods:

• Evaluated five rendering pipeline configurations in Unity using digital color patches and a tissue slide sample image.
• Measured color differences using the CIE 1976 color difference (ΔE).
• Assessed the impact of texture import settings on color properties using the TG18-QC test pattern.

Main Results:

• Color differences (ΔE) ranged from 0 to 25.97 for digital color patches and 7.49 to 34.18 for the tissue sample.
• Default Unity configurations resulted in the highest color differences across tested colors and images.
• All nine investigated texture import settings showed differences in pixel values, indicating their impact on color fidelity.

Conclusions:

• Significant variations in color transfer exist within the Unity engine, particularly with default rendering settings.
• The 'Unlit Shader' configuration demonstrated greater color consistency compared to default settings.
• Findings highlight the need for standardization and optimization of color rendering for reliable medical XR applications.