In vivo interactive visualization of four-dimensional blood flow patterns
In this paper we give an overview over a series of experiments to visualize and measure flow fields in the human vascular system with respect to their diagnostic capabilities. The experiments utilize a selection of GPU-based sparse and dense flow visualization algorithms to show the diagnostic opportunities for volumetric cardiovascular phase contrast magnetic resonance imaging data sets. Besides classical hardware accelerated particle and line-based approaches, an extensible tublet-based visualization, a four-dimensional volumetric line integral convolution and a new two-dimensional cutting plane tool for three-dimensional velocity data sets have been implemented. To evaluate the results, several hearts of human subjects have been investigated and a flow phantom was built to artificially simulate distinctive flow features. Our results demonstrate that we are able to provide an interactive tool for cardiovascular diagnostics with complementary hardware accelerated visualizations.
flow visualization cardiovascular diagnostics phase contrast magnetic resonance imaging (pc-mri)