Department of Informatics, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway.
Mohn Medical Imaging and Visualization Centre, Haukeland University Hospital, Bergen, Norway.
Adv Exp Med Biol. 2019;1156:85-96. doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-19385-0_6.
An atlas is generally defined as a bound collection of tables, charts or illustrations describing a phenomenon. In an anatomical atlas for example, a collection of representative illustrations and text describes anatomy for the purpose of communicating anatomical knowledge. The atlas serves as reference frame for comparing and integrating data from different sources by spatially or semantically relating collections of drawings, imaging data, and/or text. In the field of medical image processing, atlas information is often constructed from a collection of regions of interest, which are based on medical images that are annotated by domain experts. Such an atlas may be employed, for example, for automatic segmentation of medical imaging data. The combination of interactive visualization techniques with atlas information opens up new possibilities for content creation, curation, and navigation in virtual atlases. With interactive visualization of atlas information, students are able to inspect and explore anatomical atlases in ways that were not possible with the traditional method of presenting anatomical atlases in book format, such as viewing the illustrations from other viewpoints. With advanced interaction techniques, it becomes possible to query the data that forms the basis for the atlas, thus empowering researchers to access a wealth of information in new ways. So far, atlas-based visualization has been employed mainly for medical education, as well as biological research. In this survey, we provide an overview of current digital biomedical atlas tasks and applications and summarize relevant visualization techniques. We discuss recent approaches for providing next-generation visual interfaces to navigate atlas data that go beyond common text-based search and hierarchical lists. Finally, we reflect on open challenges and opportunities for the next steps in interactive atlas visualization.
图谱通常被定义为一个装订的表格、图表或插图集合，用于描述某种现象。例如，在解剖图谱中，一系列有代表性的插图和文字描述了解剖结构，旨在传播解剖学知识。图谱可作为参考框架，通过空间或语义关联绘图、成像数据和/或文本的集合，比较和整合来自不同来源的数据。在医学图像处理领域，图谱信息通常是从一组感兴趣区域构建的，这些区域基于经过领域专家注释的医学图像。例如，这种图谱可用于医学成像数据的自动分割。交互式可视化技术与图谱信息的结合为虚拟图谱中的内容创建、策展和导航开辟了新的可能性。通过交互式可视化图谱信息，学生可以以传统的以书籍格式呈现解剖图谱的方法无法实现的方式来检查和探索解剖图谱，例如从其他角度查看插图。通过先进的交互技术，就可以查询构成图谱基础的数据，从而使研究人员能够以新的方式访问大量信息。到目前为止，基于图谱的可视化主要用于医学教育以及生物研究。在本综述中，我们概述了当前数字生物医学图谱的任务和应用，并总结了相关的可视化技术。我们讨论了用于提供超越常见基于文本搜索和层次列表的下一代导航图谱数据的视觉界面的最新方法。最后，我们反思了交互式图谱可视化下一步的开放挑战和机遇。
