Image-based rendering of intersecting surfaces for dynamic comparative visualization

Abstract

Nested or intersecting surfaces are proven techniques for visualizing shape differences between static 3D objects (Weigle and Taylor II, IEEE Visualization, Proceedings, pp. 503-510, 2005). In this paper we present an imagebased formulation for these techniques that extends their use to dynamic scenarios, in which surfaces can be manipulated or even deformed interactively. The formulation is based on our new layered rendering pipeline, a generic image-based approach for rendering nested surfaces based on depth peeling and deferred shading.We use layered rendering to enhance the intersecting surfaces visualization. In addition to enabling interactive performance, our enhancements address several limitations of the original technique. Contours remove ambiguity regard- ing the shape of intersections. Local distances between the surfaces can be visualized at any point using either depth fogging or distance fields: Depth fogging is used as a cue for the distance between two surfaces in the viewing direction, whereas closest-point distance measures are visualized interactively by evaluating one surface's distance field on the other surface. Furthermore, we use these measures to define a three-way surface segmentation, which visualizes regions of growth, shrinkage, and no change of a test surface compared with a reference surface.Finally, we demonstrate an application of our technique in the visualization of statistical shape models. We evaluate our technique based on feedback provided by medical image analysis researchers, who are experts in working with such models.

Screen-space silhouettes for visualizing ensembles of 3D isosurfaces

“…Several methods have been proposed to visualize isosurfaces extracted from 3D ensemble data, e.g., by means of animation [6], volume rendering [11,44], or confidence envelopes [35,37,48]. Other methods aim at rendering multiple isosurfaces into a single 3D view [1,8]. However, only a few ensemble members can be visualized simultaneously due to cluttering and occlusion.…”

Comparative visualization of multiple time surfaces by planar surface reformation

“…A third category, feature-level comparative visualization, was later introduced by Verma and Pang [38]. Further work has been published for the visual comparison of 2D data [35], 3D data [6] and polygonal meshes [7]. For flow visualization, Verma and Pang [38] introduced methods for the comparison of streamlines and streamribbons by object-space juxtaposition.…”

Visual Comparison of 3D Medical Image Segmentation Algorithms Based on Statistical Shape Models

“…They do not discriminate between two results which are badly segmented in different regions (e.g., top and bottom of an organ). Visual inspection concerns individual instances shown in 2D and 3D views such as ITK Snap (www.itksnap.org) or overlay the two meshes using transparency, color-coded local distances between vertices, e.g., [6,2,5,13]. These views are very detailed, but require manual inspection of all instances individually.…”