The α-histogram: using spatial coherence to enhance histograms and transfer function design

Authors:
Claes Lundström;Anders Ynnerman;Patric Ljung;Anders Persson;Hans Knutsson
Affiliations:
Center for Medical Image science and Visualization, Linköping University, and Sectra-Imtec AB;Division for Visual Information Technology and Applications, Linköping University;Division for Visual Information Technology and Applications, Linköping University;Center for Medical Image science and Visualization, Linköping University;Medical Informatics Group, Linköping University
Venue:
EUROVIS'06 Proceedings of the Eighth Joint Eurographics / IEEE VGTC conference on Visualization
Year:
2006

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Abstract

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.