Three-dimensional interactive virtual endoscopy

Virtual endoscopy is a new development of diagnostic imaging, covering a wide range of potential clinical applications. This paper introduced a system framework for virtual endoscopy. Our research efforts concentrated on mesh smoothing, automated centerline extraction and view-dependent level-of-detail rendering techniques. First, the fairing surface was obtained by smoothing the normal vectors of the reconstructed model. Then, the modified reliable path method was used to generate the accurate skeleton. After that, the view-dependent level-of-detail rendering techniques, including mesh simplification, mesh parameterization and mesh subdivision, were used to achieve the purpose of real time rendering. Experimental results for the images of cerebral blood vessels, knees, and trachea using our solution were given.