Real-time Volume Rendering for High Quality Visualization

Abstract Recent advances in the field of computer graphics have enabled ex-tremely fast and high quality rendering of volumetric data. However, these al-gorithms have been developed and optimized for visualization on single view displays, and not for stereoscopic augmented reality systems. In this paper, we present our implementation and results for the integration of a high quality hard-ware accelerated volume renderer into a medical augmented reality framework using a video see through HMD. The performance and quality of the renderer is evaluated through phantom experiments and an in-vivo experiment. Compared to the literature, our approach allows direct real-time stereo visualization of volu-metric medical data on a HMD without prior time consuming pre-processing or segmentation. To further improve the visual perception and interaction of real and virtual objects, the renderer implements occlusion handling with the physicians hands and tracked medical instruments.