Preliminary results of a modified surface rendering technique in the display of magnetic resonance angiography images

Maximum intensity projections are the currently accepted method of displaying Magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) data. In this study, we introduce a modified surface rendering method for displaying this same MRA data. The system we have developed is designed to reconstruct three-dimensional (3D) images of vasculature using standard magnetic resonance images. A workstation was used for post-processing that is readily available and inexpensive. Software was written to process the original images and control the commercially available surface rendering algorithm while performing the reconstruction. The standard surface rendering technique was modified by including several velocities of blood flow in the reconstruction. These velocities were assigned varying degrees of translucency, which allow flow information to be included in the reconstructed images. Six subjects were examined using this technique and the images were compared with those from other imaging modalities. This surface rendering method has been shown to produce clearer and more comprehensible images of complex vasculature, both for radiologists, and for physicians of other disciplines. Its success is based on improvements in computing techniques and in acquisition of vascular MR images. The method shows great potential, and with future clinical trials, the true uses of this method will be discovered or confirmed.