Simulating motion of anatomical objects with volume-based 3D visualization

Simulation and 3D visualization of object motion is a prerequisite for any surgical planning system. In order to provide feedback to show whether a realistic motion has been simulated, it is necessary to detect, quantify and visualize interpenetrating volumes. This cannot be achieved by common surface based methods. Therefore we developed a voxel-based approach, providing the full information of the tomographic volume data. We present an extended ray-casting algorithm which allows visualization of object motion using ray compositing, thus avoiding explicit manipulation of the image volume. Possible volumetric intersections may be visualized and quantified and interior properties of scenes with any displace objects may be explored using volume cuts.