School of Information Technology, Illinois State University, 100 North University Street, Normal, IL 61761, United States; Department of Medical Biophysics, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada N6A 5C1.
Department of Medical Biophysics, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada N6A 5C1; Robarts Research Institute, Western University, 1151 Richmond St. N., London, Ontario, Canada N6A 5B7.
Comput Med Imaging Graph. 2021 Mar;88:101850. doi: 10.1016/j.compmedimag.2020.101850. Epub 2020 Dec 30.
Dual-modality 4D cardiac data visualization can convey a significant amount of complementary image information from various sources into a single and meaningful display. Even though there are existing publications on combining multiple medical images into a unique representation, there has been no work on rendering a series of cardiac image sequences, acquired from multiple sources, using web browsers and synchronizing the result over the Internet in real time. The ability to display multi-modality beating heart images using Web-based technology is hampered by the lack of efficient algorithms for fusing and visualizing constantly updated multi-source images and streaming the rendering results using internet protocols. To address this practical issue, in this paper we introduce a new Internet-based algorithm and a software platform running on a Node.js server, where a series of registered cardiac images from both magnetic resonance (MR) and ultrasound are employed to display dynamic fused cardiac structures in web browsers. Taking advantage of the bidirectional WebSocket protocol and WebGL-based graphics acceleration, internal cardiac structures are dynamically displayed, and the results of rendering and data exploration are synchronized among all the connected client computers. The presented research and software have the potential to provide clinicians with comprehensive information and intuitive feedback relating to cardiac behavior and anatomy and could impact areas such as distributed diagnosis of cardiac function and collaborative treatment planning for various heart diseases.
双模 4D 心脏数据可视化可以将来自不同来源的大量互补图像信息融合到一个单一且有意义的显示中。尽管已经有将多种医学图像组合成独特表示形式的现有出版物，但还没有关于使用网络浏览器呈现从多个源获取的一系列心脏图像序列并在互联网上实时同步结果的工作。使用基于 Web 的技术显示多模态跳动心脏图像的能力受到缺乏有效算法的限制，这些算法用于融合和可视化不断更新的多源图像，并使用互联网协议流式传输渲染结果。为了解决这个实际问题，在本文中，我们介绍了一种新的基于 Internet 的算法和一个运行在 Node.js 服务器上的软件平台，该平台使用来自磁共振（MR）和超声的一系列注册心脏图像在网络浏览器中显示动态融合的心脏结构。利用双向 WebSocket 协议和基于 WebGL 的图形加速，内部心脏结构被动态显示，并且所有连接的客户端计算机之间的渲染和数据探索结果被同步。所提出的研究和软件有可能为临床医生提供与心脏行为和解剖结构相关的全面信息和直观反馈，并可能影响心脏功能的分布式诊断和各种心脏病的协作治疗计划等领域。
