Ultrasound simulation based on ray tracing enables the synthesis of highly realistic images. It can provide an interactive environment for training sonographers as an educational tool. However, due to high computational demand, there is a trade-off between image quality and interactivity, potentially leading to sub-optimal results at interactive rates. In this work we introduce a deep learning approach based on adversarial training that mitigates this trade-off by improving the quality of simulated images with constant computation time. An image-to-image translation framework is utilized to translate low quality images into high quality versions. To incorporate anatomical information potentially lost in low quality images, we additionally provide segmentation maps to image translation. Furthermore, we propose to leverage information from acoustic attenuation maps to better preserve acoustic shadows and directional artifacts, an invaluable feature for ultrasound image interpretation. The proposed method yields an improvement of 7.2% in Fréchet Inception Distance and 8.9% in patch-based Kullback-Leibler divergence.
Virtual cutting of deformable objects is at the core of many applications in interactive simulation and especially in computational medicine. The ability to simulate surgical cuts, dissection, soft tissue tearing or micro-fractures, is essential for augmenting the capabilities of existing or future simulation systems. To support such features, we combine a new remeshing algorithm with a fast finite element approach. The proposed method is generic enough to support a large variety of applications. We show the benefits of our approach evaluating the impact of cuts on the number of nodes and the numerical quality of the mesh. These points are crucial to ensure accurate and stable realtime simulations.
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