Visualization of cardiac magnetic resonance images with color encoded 2D and 3D functional images

Methods of reducing the amount of data required to determine a clinical impression of a patient's condition are presented. The visualization of cardiac magnetic resonance images is discussed. Color functional images, calculated from quantitative analysis of the image sequences, are created to direct the physician to areas of abnormality. These images indicate regions of hyper- or hypokinesis, abnormal ejection fractions, and wall thickening. By selection of a region of abnormality from the functional images the actual image data and quantitative measurements of that particular area can be observed. This approach, going from data compressed into visual representations toward the original scans, provides an efficient method for reviewing large data sets of information without obscuring the original data or inhibiting access to information.<<ETX>>