Reconstructing Solids from Tomographic Scans - The PARCUM II System

The computer-aided design of mechanical parts is supported by sophisticated geometric modelers and visualized by high-performance raster graphics systems allowing for a realistic display. The geometric modeler accepts the designer's inputs and converts them into a 3D model. In general, the designer has total control of the object description defining his design. But in contrast, the situation is different when dealing with existing physical objects, e.g. natural objects such as the human body, for which an explicit 3D model is required. For instance, in many applications the input information is a sequence of 2D tomographic scans. In this case the task is to combine both the interactive CADmode of construction as well as the scan-based mode of reconstruction in an integrated system, such that an unique 3D object representation is achieved and can be supported by hardware efficiently. Here we describe a cellular space representation scheme which is supported by a voxel-oriented graphics system --the PARCUM II System.