Transfer Function-based Fusion of Medical PET and CT Data

Praktikum/DA/BA

Peter Kohlmann, Meister Eduard Gröller

Content:

Description

Computed Tomography (CT) is a well-suited technique to obtain a high-resolution scan of the anatomical structures of interest. With Positron Emission Tomography (PET) it is much easier to determine even very small cancerous cells. A drawback of PET is the limitation of the spatial resolution. Thus, usually 1D transfer functions (TFs) which typically define color and opacity for the data's scalar values are defined individually for the PET and the CT scan. After this step these two data sets need to be fused to obtain an appropriate visualization which combines the advantages of both scanning techniques. Multidimensional TFs were introduced to let parameters such as gradient magnitude or second derivatives control the voxel's intensity. The goal of this work is to use the scalar data of both scanning techniques to define a single TF to achieve an implicit fusion of the data.

Task

Your task will be the implementation of a user-friendly 2D TF editor which uses the scalar values of the PET and the CT data as dimensions. This editor will be used to control the opacity and the color for the combination of scalar values from both data sets. The framework for your implementations will be a highly innovative real-world medical workstation of our collaborative company partner which is under development. You have the chance to work in a creative environment and we are looking forward to the contribution of your ideas.

Requirements

Good knowledge and high interest in computer graphics and visualization, good programming skills (Java)

Additional Information

Contact: Peter Kohlmann

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