MEDICAL IMAGE PROCESSING METHODS FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF A VIRTUAL ENDOSCOPE

Abstract

Virtual endoscopes give internal views of the human body without penetrating it, based on a set of parallel cross-sections produced with any computed tomography method. This paper presents some ideas concerning the design and implementation of a software system, which acts like a virtual endoscope. It takes into account the general requirements of the system, gives a solution that uses a multi-step algorithm, and finally shows the resulting 3-D images. Most of the algorithmic steps have several possible solutions. Some comparisons are made among them where appropriate. The quality of service provided by the chosen method mainly depends on the resolution of the input images.