EUROVIS - Eurographics /IEEE VGTC Symposium on Visualization
2006
pp. 227-234

The alpha -histogram: Using Spatial Coherence to Enhance Histograms and Transfer Function Design

Claes Lundström, Anders Ynnerman, Patric Ljung, Anders Persson, and Hans Knutsson

DOI: 10.2312/VisSym/EuroVis06/227-234

The high complexity of Transfer Function (TF) design is a major obstacle to widespread routine use of Direct Volume Rendering, particularly in the case of medical imaging. Both manual and automatic TF design schemes would benefit greatly from a fast and simple method for detection of tissue value ranges. To this end, we introduce the a-histogram, an enhancement that amplifies ranges corresponding to spatially coherent materials. The properties of the a-histogram have been explored for synthetic data sets and then successfully used to detect vessels in 20 Magnetic Resonance angiographies, proving the potential of this approach as a fast and simple technique for histogram enhancement in general and for TF construction in particular.

Categories and Subject Descriptors (according to ACM CCS): I.3.3 [Computer Graphics]: Picture/Image Generation; I.3.6 [Computer Graphics]: Methodology and Techniques; I.3.7 [Computer Graphics]: Three-Dimensional Graphics and Realism;

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