Tag: VCBM

VCBM 2016 paper ‘Sline: Seamless Line Illustration for Interactive Biomedical Visualization’ accepted!

Our paper ‘ Sline: Seamless Line Illustration for Interactive Biomedical Visualization’ was accepted for presentation at VCBM 2016, the 6th Eurographics Workshop on Visual Computing for Biology and Medicine. I’ve attended all VCBM editions since 2012, and am happy I can attend this one as well in Bergen, Norway. Which is extra convenient, since it’s my new hometown! I accepted a position as a researcher in the amazing visualization group at the University of Bergen and just started this week ^^

Back to Sline though, it’s a cool technique where you can pick an illustrative rendering style per structure using a single parameter slider. Behold:

Our Virtual Surgical Pelvis illustrated using Sline
Our Virtual Surgical Pelvis illustrated using Sline. So the organs and bones are hatched to draw attention here, while the nerves and vessels are de-emphasized by rendering only the silhouettes.

authors:  Nils Lichtenberg, Noeska Smit, Christian Hansen, and Kai Lawonn

abstract: In medical visualization of surface information, problems often arise when visualizing several overlapping structures simultaneously. There is a trade-off between visualizing multiple structures in a detailed way and limiting visual clutter, in order to allow users to focus on the main structures. Illustrative visualization techniques can help alleviate these problems by defining a level of abstraction per structure. However, clinical uptake of these advanced visualization techniques so far has been limited due to the complex parameter settings required.

To bring advanced medical visualization closer to clinical application, we propose a novel illustrative technique that offers a seamless transition between various levels of abstraction and detail. Using a single comprehensive parameter, users are able to quickly define a visual representation per structure that fits the visualization requirements for focus and context structures. This technique can be applied to any biomedical context in which multiple surfaces are routinely visualized, such as neurosurgery, radiotherapy planning or drug design. Additionally, we introduce a novel hatching technique, that runs in real-time and does not require texture coordinates. An informal evaluation with experts from different biomedical domains reveals that our technique allows users to design focus-and-context visualizations in a fast and intuitive manner.

2016 is here! A time for looking back and looking forward.

If cpbotha can post after a four month hiatus, then so can I ^^.  First of all, all the best for 2016 to all of you! I hope it’s a good one.  The start of a new year is as good a time as any (if not better) for a look back, or review if you want to get fancy about it, of the previous year and to look forward to things happening in the time ahead.

First up, looking back:

  • I didn’t blog so much, because a) I was crazy busy (final year of the PhD anyone?), and b) personal issues that I will not discuss here. Maybe I will increase the update frequency, maybe I won’t. Wait and find out?
  • In September, I presented at VCBM! My favorite conference in the world (eat it, VIS!). It was in Chester, UK this year (full report here) and I presented work festively entitled “Illustrative Multi-volume Rendering for PET/CT Scans”, which does exactly whatever you think it does. To make sure it does, check the full paper and pretty pictures here.
  • In September/October I went on a month-long research visit to the Bergen Visualization group in Norway, which was great for several reasons:
    • I met soooo many cool new people as well as cool people I knew from conferences before. It’s really an excellent group in all ways possible.
    • Bergen itself is really heaven on earth. It has it all, mountains within walking distance, a harbor, waffles and lots of metal. Also, VCBM 2016!
    • A little more on these mountains…. I’m not much of a sporty person, but on my first weekend there, I was invited to hike up Ulriken (only the highest of the Seven Mountains they have, luckily):
      Ulriken Bergen
      Ulriken as viewed from the airport bus

      Talk about life-changing experiences… Mind=blown by the view, experience and sheer exhaustion.

      View from Ulriken, Bergen
      View from Ulriken, Bergen. Hi, Bergen!

      It’s quite addictive really. I hiked up there once more during my stay. I could definitely see that becoming sort of just a thing to do on the weekends while living there.

    • I presented at a medviz seminar, check the flyer here. Yes, there was a flyer with my face on it!
    • I got some great PhD advice and started collaborating on a paper together. I can really recommend a visit like this, if it is at all possible, to anyone doing a PhD.
  • 2015 was definitely the year of collaborations. Good ones too (for me at least ^^)! I worked with people from Leiden, Magdeburg, Bergen and recently Koblenz, and they are all awesome and I hope to do more of that in 2016.

Then for the looking forward bit:

  • I hope to have more awesome collaborations in 2016.
  • I have approximately a million, ok four-ish, papers to wrap up and then…
  • I don’t want to alarm you or anything, but 2016 could be the year I get my PhD (correction sent in by cpbotha: get doctorified) . After which I’ll have to change the subtitle of this blog into something yet unknown. I’m not the world’s biggest fan of change, but let’s just say, ‘it is time’. I’ve been walking around at the TU Delft since 2005 (yes, really…), first as a bachelor student, then master, then PhD, and a decade is more than enough for me. I’m looking forward to starting something new somewhere else. Anywhere else 😉

Alright, I just spent my full two week holiday working interspersed with family visits, the first part of which is not really my style, but hey, desperate times, desperate measures. So I guess I’d better go finish 1 out of those million papers. Till next time!

VCBM paper ‘Illustrative Multi-volume Rendering for PET/CT Scans’ accepted!

Our full paper on Illustrative Multi-volume Rendering for PET/CT Scans[1] was accepted for presentation at the always awesome VCBM workshop. I will be presenting it in Chester (UK) in September. For now, a teaser image of our technique:

lasmprvi_vcbm2015
Illustrative Multi-volume Rendering for PET/CT Scans teaser image