3D Visualisation Technologies in Medical Imaging - C@SS Conference

Steven Reynolds, Toshiba

Medical imaging scanners allow clinicians to look inside their patients without having to cut them open! One of the the oldest forms of this technology is the 2D X-Ray. Today, essentially all digital. It has the advantage of being cheap and fast.

Computer Tomography (CT) uses X-Ray emitter and detector on a spinning gantry to produce slices of data.

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) good for looking at soft tissue (brain, fat tendons etc.

Ultrasound uses an ultra-sound transmitter. PET uses radioactive tracer to detect what is happening inside.

Realtime X-Ray can be used to guide other procedures.

Many of these techniques can generate lots of data but can be difficult to interpret 2D images to build up a model of the subject. Computer technology can help. The Toshiba team use C++, C# and many other computing tools to process the data and help doctors understand it. They render the data to generate 2D images from 3D and 4D data.