Remote Interactive Direct Volume Rendering for Intra-operative Application

Interactive and high-quality direct volume rendering provides a comprehensive spatial understanding of complex structures within volume data. This is achieved with 3D texture mapping which is still limited to high-end graphics hardware. In order to access this type of visualization intraoperatively, the system presented in [1] was applied within the operating room. In this context, navigation within CTA data was evaluated in case of intracranial aneurysms. The suggested framework efficiently combines local desktop computers and remote high-end graphics hardware. Thereby, standard visualization capabilities which are available at the clinic are exploited to a maximum. In addition, remote specialized hardware is accessed providing 3D representations of high resolution and quality. Based on different 2D and 3D functionality the integration of the suggested remote visualization strategy is efficiently assisted. Different examples of intraoperative application demonstrate the value of this approach.