Perceptual enhancement of two-level volume rendering

Abstract

We present a system for interactive visualisation of 3D volumetric medical datasets combined with perceptual evaluation of how such visualizations can affect a user's interpretation of scenes and attention. Enhancements to traditional volume renderings are provided through a two-level volume rendering strategy which employs fast GPU-based Direct Volume Rendering (DVR) coupled with an additional layer of perceptual cues derived from various techniques from the nonphotorealistic rendering (NPR) literature. The two-level approach allows us to successfully separate the most relevant data from peripheral extraneous detail enabling the user to more effectively understand the visual information. Peripheral details are abstracted but sufficiently retained in order to provide spatial reference. We perform a number of perceptual user experiments which test how this approach affects a user's attention and ability to determine the shape of an object. Results indicate that our approach can provide a significant improvement in user perception of shape in complex visualizations, especially when a user has little or no prior knowledge of the data. Our approach would prove extremely useful in technical, medical or scientific visualizations to improve understanding of detailed volumetric datasets. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 A c c e p t e d m a n u s c r i p t Perceptual Enhancement of Two-level Volume Rendering AbstractWe present a system for interactive visualisation of 3D volumetric medical datasets combined with perceptual evaluation of how such visualizations can affect a user's interpretation of scenes and attention. Enhancements to traditional volume renderings are provided through a two-level volume rendering strategy which employs fast GPU-based Direct Volume Rendering (DVR) coupled with an additional layer of perceptual cues derived from various techniques from the non-photorealistic rendering (NPR) literature. The two-level approach allows us to successfully separate the most relevant data from peripheral extraneous detail enabling the user to more effectively understand the visual information. Peripheral details are abstracted but sufficiently retained in order to provide spatial reference. We perform a number of perceptual user experiments which test how this approach affects a user's attention and ability to determine the shape of an object. Results indicate that our approach can provide a significant improvement in user perception of shape in complex visualizations, especially when a user has little or no prior knowledge of the data. Our approach would prove extremely useful in technical, medical or scientific visualizations to improve understanding of detailed volumetric datasets.

A Survey of Perceptually Motivated 3D Visualization of Medical Image Data

“…Boundary emphasis techniques support object recognition in dense anatomical regions. Feature lines and hatching textures may be overlaid to shaded surfaces to improve the shape perception [CRD10,IFP95]. Feature lines in isolation, however, are too sparse to faithfully depict anatomical shapes.…”

“…Corcoran and colleagues [CRD10] stated that "rendered images of complex volume data tend to have excessive detail, which is often multilayered and overlapping. [.…”

“…In Sect. 3.1.2, we described perceptual enhancements of volume rendering based on two-level volume rendering [CRD10]. These enhancements were the subject of a quantitative evaluation related to shape perception that was performed as a gauge figure task.…”

An Architecture Approach for 3D Render Distribution using Mobile Devices in Real Time

“…For improving traditional visualization of render, Corcoran et al [16] propose a model that employs two phases, which depend firstly on rendering volume direct (RVD), and on a number of other rendering non photorealistic processing techniques (RNF). By separating the visualization on two levels, allowing a higher level of detail than that normally observed with the traditional process, it is noteworthy its level software architecture.…”

“…Another algorithm commonly used for rendering is Ray-tracing [15,16,17,25,26,27,28]. This is based on the illumination of the image, capturing the beam size and its reflection on the object.…”