Interrogation and display of single photon emission tomography data as inherently volume data

The purpose of single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) data is to map the tracer concentration from the three-dimensional object into a three-dimensional image array. The conventional interrogation of the data is through slice interrogation. In this paper we explore display methods in which the data are directly interrogated and processed as three-dimensional data. This includes direct addressing of sagittal, transverse, and frontal slices, around a targeted subvolume, and direct addressing of nonorthogonal slices. The three-dimensional aspect of the data is further accommodated by thresholding and edge definition in space. Finally, morphological information, which is sparse in scintigraphic slices, is recaptured by the generation of planar data derived from data processed in the three-dimensional space.