Journal of the Korea Computer Graphics Society (한국컴퓨터그래픽스학회논문지)

Korea Computer Graphics Society (한국컴퓨터그래픽스학회)
권호 표지
DOI QR코드

DOI QR Code

Medical data visualization using Unity3D game engine

Unity3D 게임 엔진을 이용한 의료 데이터 가시화

  • Received : 2017.06.24
  • Accepted : 2017.07.06
  • Published : 2017.07.14
Download PDF
⟨ Previous Next ⟩

Abstract

Due to improvements in the capabilities of commercial game engines, there are increasing instances of applying game engines to scientific visualization applications. This study describes a case of creating a virtual reality application that visualizes medical volume data based on the Unity3D game engine. When using a game engine, there is an advantage that various functions required for an application are basically provided, such as depth sorting of translucent objects or virtual reality hardware support. On the other hand, there is a restriction that the structure of the application program should be modified to suit the characteristics of the game engine. This paper describes a method for visualizing medical volume data using the structure of a game engine. As a result, we were able to create a virtual reality scene that consisted of surface data and medical volume data fragments together. And we confirmed the possibility of game engine as a future medical simulation production tool.

상용의 게임 엔진의 기능이 향상되면서 과학적 가시화 프로그램에 게임 엔진을 적용하는 사례가 증가하고 있다. 본 연구는 Unity3D 게임 엔진을 기반으로, 의료 볼륨 데이터를 가시화하는 가상현실 응용프로그램의 제작 사례를 설명한다. 게임 엔진을 사용하는 경우, 반투명한 물체의 깊이 정렬이나 가상현실 하드웨어 지원과 같이, 응용 프로그램이 필요한 다양한 기능이 기본적으로 제공되는 장점이 있다. 한편, 게임 엔진의 특성에 적합하도록 응용 프로그램의 구조를 수정하여 적용해야 하는 제약이 있다. 본 연구는 게임 엔진의 구조를 이용하여 의료 볼륨 데이터의 가시화를 수행하는 방법에 대해 설명한다. 그 결과, 표면 데이터와 의료 볼륨 데이터 조각들이 함께 구성된 가상현실 장면을 생성할 수 있었으며, 게임 엔진의 의료 시뮬레이션 제작 도구로서의 가능성을 확인하였다.

Keywords

References

  1. Z. Lv, A. Tek, F. Da Silva, C. Empereur-mot, M. Chavent, and M. Baaden, "Game On, Science - How Video Game Technology May Help Biologists Tackle Visualization Challenges," PLoS ONE, Vol. 8, No. 3, e57990, 2013. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0057990
  2. M. Le Muzic, L. Autin, J. Parulek, and I. Viola, "cellVIEW: a Tool for Illustrative and Multi-Scale Rendering of Large Biomolecular Datasets," In Eurographics Workshop on Visual Computing for Biology and Medicine, pp. 61-70, 2015.
  3. N.H. Khalifa, Q.V. Nguyen, S. Simoff, and D. Catchpoole, "A visualization system for analyzing biomedical and genomic data sets using Unity3D platform," In Proc. 8th Australasian Workshop on Health Informatics and Knowledge Management, pp. 47-53, 2015.
  4. M. Levoy, "Volume Rendering Display of Surfaces from Volume Data," IEEE Computer Graphics and Application, Vol. 8, pp. 29-37, 1988. https://doi.org/10.1109/38.511
  5. S. Bruckner, "Efficient Volume Visualization of Large Medical Datasets," M.S. Thesis, Vienna University of Technology, Vienna, 2004.
  6. C. Rezk-Salama, K. Engel, M. Bauer, G. Greiner, G, and T. Ertl, "Interactive volume on standard PC graphics hardware using multi-textures and multi-stage rasterization," In Proceedings of the ACM SIGGRAPH/EUROGRAPHICS works hop on Graphics hardware, pp. 109-118, 2000.
  7. K. Engel and T. Ertl, "Interactive high-quality volume rendering with flexible consumer graphics hardware," In Eurographics State of The Art Report, 2002.
  8. S. Stegmaier, M. Strengert, T. Klein, and T. Ertl, "A simple and flexible volume rendering framework for graphics-hardware-based raycasting," In Eurographics/IEEE VGTC Workshop on Volume Graphics, pp. 187-195, 2005
  9. S. Roettger, S. Guthe, D. Weiskopf, T. Ertl, and W. Strasser, "Smart hardware-accelerated volume rendering," In Proceedings of the symposium on Data visualization 2003, pp. 231-238, 2003.
  10. J. Kruger and R. Westermann, "Acceleration techniques for GPU-based volume rendering," In Proceedings of the 14th IEEE Visualization 2003, p. 38, 2003.
  11. J. Mensmann, T. Ropinski, and K. Hinrichs, "An advanced volume raycasting technique using GPU stream processing," In 5th International Conference on Computer Graphics Theory and Applications, pp. 190-198, 2010.
  12. Volumetric Shader, Available: http://www.shadowmint.com/articles/code-volumetric-shader-1/ [Accessed 24 June 2017].
  13. G. Ferrand, J. English, and P. Irani, "3D visualization of astronomy data cubes using immersive displays," ArXiv e-prints, 2016.

Cited by

  1. 유니티 게임 엔진 기반의 의료 시뮬레이션을 위한 초점 배경 볼륨 가시화 vol.18, pp.4, 2017, https://doi.org/10.7583/jkgs.2018.18.4.65