Combining local and remote visualization techniques for interactive volume rendering in medical applications

For a comprehensive understanding of tomographic image data inmedical routine, interactive and high-quality direct volume renderingis an essential prerequisite. This is provided by visualizationusing 3D texture mapping which is still limited to high-end graphicshardware. In order to make it available in a clinical environment,we present a system which uniquely combines local desktop computersand remote high-end graphics hardware. In this context, weexploit the standard visualization capabilities to a maximum whichare available in the clinical environment. For 3D representations ofhigh resolution and quality we access the remote specialized hardware.Various tools for 2D and 3D visualization are provided whichmeet the requirements of a medical diagnosis. This is demonstratedwith examples from the field of neuroradiology which show thevalue of our strategy in practice.