VOLUME MEASUREMENT AND SURFACE VISUALISATION IN SEQUENTIAL FREEHAND 3D ULTRASOUND
Graham Treece
November 2000
Three-dimensional (3D) acquisition and visualisation techniques are increasingly being incorporated into commercial ultrasound scanners. The diagnostic benefit of such techniques is not yet convincing, compared to the added inconvenience of using them. Although it is straightforward to use special probes to acquire 3D data, these are more restrictive than conventional 2D probes. The only 3D technique which retains the scanning flexibility and wide area of application of 2D ultrasound, is freehand 3D ultrasound, where a 2D probe is moved manually and its location sensed remotely. However, it is hard to generate a regular volume of data from the resulting non-parallel ultrasound images.
Probably the largest body of evidence justifying the use of 3D ultrasound relates to the accurate measurement of volume. However, volume measurement with 3D ultrasound requires segmentation (i.e. outlining of the area of interest), which is a time consuming, manual task. Both this problem, and that of creating a regular volume of data, are eased by the use of sequential freehand 3D ultrasound, a recent technique amplified in this thesis, where all the processing is performed on the original ultrasound images. Thus a regular array of data is not required, and segmentation is performed on images whose features and artifacts are recognisable to the clinician.
In this thesis, novel volume measurement and surface visualisation algorithms are developed for sequential freehand 3D ultrasound. A particular emphasis is placed on limiting the number of segmented cross-sections required for a given measurement accuracy. Inherent accuracy is demonstrated by simulation to be within +/-2%, from 10 or fewer cross-sections. In-vivo precision, including registration and segmentation errors, is shown to be within +/-7%, even on complicated objects such as the liver or a foetus, from similar numbers of cross-sections. The volume can be updated in real-time as each image is segmented, and surfaces can be interpolated and visualised within a few seconds. Such visualisation can reveal errors in the segmentation which are otherwise hard to see.
In addition, a framework for multiple-sweep data is developed, which allows volume measurement and surface visualisation of anatomy that can only be scanned by several sweeps of the ultrasound probe. Accurate volume measurements can therefore be made of all areas observable by conventional ultrasound. These measurements can be accomplished within approximately 5 minutes of examining the patient.
The surface visualisation algorithms can also produce high quality renderings of data from a wide range of sources in medical imaging and other fields. The interpolation of cross-sections is an improvement on shape-based interpolation, and the triangular mesh created from the data is of a much higher quality than that using marching cubes. An extension of the surface interpolation algorithm can also be used to gradually change, or `morph' one 3D surface to another, a technique commonly used in the film industry.
Keywords: freehand 3D ultrasound, volume measurement, surface from cross-sections, isosurface triangulation, volume metamorphosis.
[16.5 MBytes compressed PostScript or 14.7 MBytes PDF, 183 pages]
If you have difficulty viewing files that end '.gz',
which are gzip compressed, then you may be able to find
tools to uncompress them at the gzip
web site.
If you have difficulty viewing files that are in PostScript, (ending
'.ps' or '.ps.gz'), then you may be able to
find tools to view them at
the gsview
web site.
We have attempted to provide automatically generated PDF copies of documents for which only PostScript versions have previously been available. These are clearly marked in the database - due to the nature of the automatic conversion process, they are likely to be badly aliased when viewed at default resolution on screen by acroread.