Real-time Illustrative Visualization of Cardiovascular Hemodynamics

Abstract

Modern magnetic resonance imaging techniques enable acquisition of time-resolved volumetric blood-flow velocity data. With these data, physicians aim for newfound insight into the intricate blood-flow dynamics. This conceivably leads to improved diagnosis and prognosis of cardiovascular diseases, as well as a better assessment of treatments and risks. We facilitate the time-consuming and challenging process of visual analysis of these unsteady, multi-dimensional and multi-valued data by comprehensive exploratory visualization techniques, tailored to communicate blood flow in the heart and the thoracic arteries. We introduce abstraction techniques to reduce the abundance of information contained in the data. Interactive exploration is enabled by probing tools, selecting regions-of-interest that serve as a basis for our real-time illustrative visualizations. Based on evaluation studies with the involved physicians, we believe that real-time visual exploration of blood-flow data facilitates the qualitative analysis.