Interactive virtual colonoscopy system based on CT volume images

Virtual endoscopy is a new-generation post-processing method, which combines the features of endoscopic viewing and cross-sectional volumetric imaging. It employs techniques in broad research areas such as 3D segmentation, 3D modeling, 3D rendering, path auto-extraction and navigation for computer-assistant diagnosis (CAD) and surgical simulation. In this paper we present a typical endoscopy system for virtual colonoscopy using multi-slice CT images. The details of the proposed system are discussed from the aspect of marching cubes surface rendering, tri-planar display and endoscopy navigation. We also propose an improved hybrid segmentation algorithm for performance enhancement. The result of our experiments reveals that the proposed virtual colonoscopy system is a helpful tool for doctors to examine the topology of a patient's lumen in diagnosing anomalies.