Patent ID: 7952592

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for creating a cutout surface for volume rendering, the method performed by the computer comprising the steps of: providing a digitized medical image volume comprising a plurality of intensities corresponding to a 3-dimensional grid of points; identifying, by the computer, a surface of interest in said image volume; representing said surface-of-interest by a polygonal mesh; extracting a set of curves on said surface-of-interest where a cutout surface will intersect; extending a vector defined on one of said curves toward a viewing point; and sweeping said extended vector along said curve to create said cutout surface, wherein said cutout surface will intersect said surface-of-interest at an angle θ between the surface tangent and a vector from the surface to a viewing point, and said angle θ satisfies the relation {circumflex over (n)}·{circumflex over (v)}+sin(θ)=0, wherein {circumflex over (n)} is a surface normal vector, {circumflex over (v)} is a normalized view vector from the surface to the viewing point.