Patent ID: 8363066

Claim:
A method of displaying first image data having a first resolution simultaneously with time-varying second image data having a second resolution which is lower than the first resolution, wherein the time-varying second image data comprises a predetermined number of second image data sets, with each second image data set representing a different point in time, the method comprising: rendering and merging the first image data with a first group of second image data using rendering parameters representing a viewpoint to produce a first group of merged image data, wherein the first group of second image data comprises a predetermined number of second image data sets which are contiguous in time; and displaying the first group of merged image data as a sequence of images on a display; wherein each image of the sequence of images includes both the first image data and the time-varying second image data, wherein, during the step of displaying the first group of merged image data, the step of rendering and merging is repeated with a second group of second image data, and wherein rendering and merging of the second group of second image data is completed before the step of displaying the first group of merged image data has completed, wherein the predetermined number of second image data sets is chosen so that a first time to process all the second image data sets is substantially the same as a second time to process the first image data, and wherein the first image data is structural image data of a structure and the second image data is functional image data indicating a function of the structure.