Bilateral Depth Filtering for Enhanced Vessel Reformation

Abstract

Curved Planar Reformation is a powerful visualization technique for the diagnosis of vascular diseases. It allowsan accurate centerline-driven investigation of vessel lumen while providing valuable anatomical context.Extended methods like Multipath Curved Planar Reformation, Centerline Reformation or Curved Surface Reformationprovide additional flexibility by condensing entire vascular systems into rotatable views. Unfortunately, allthese methods produce depth discontinuities because they operate in a projective fashion. While large discontinuitiesprovide valuable hints about distinct anatomical contexts, small discontinuities, which frequently arise, havedistracting effects on the visualization result and do not contribute significant information. In this paper we presenta bilateral filtering technique which allows to selectively remove depth discontinuities without affecting discontinuitiesthat carry information. The presented approach significantly improves the quality of vessel reformations,can be applied at interactive frame rates and is orthogonal to existing methods.