Volumetric reconstruction from DICOM/sup TM/ format in magnetic resonance imaging and 3D visualization

The advances in 3D data modeling methods are becoming increasingly popular in the areas of biology, chemistry and medical applications. The magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technique has progressed at a spectacular rate over the past few years, its uses have been spread over many applications throughout the body in both anatomical and functional investigations. In this paper we present an automatic method for volumetric reconstruction from 2D MR slices in standard DICOMtrade format. A 3D mesh model of the head using the contour acquired from cross-sectional slices by active contour model segmentation is performed. Finally, we propose the visualization with OpenGLtrade 3D Graphics of the surface information.