THREE-DIMENSIONAL IMAGE GENERATION DEVICE AND THREE-DIMENSIONAL IMAGE GENERATION METHOD

• Main Authors: UDA MANABU, KAWABATA AKIHIRO
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 16.06.2005
• Edition: 7
• Subjects: CALCULATING; COMPUTING; COUNTING; DIAGNOSIS; HUMAN NECESSITIES; HYGIENE; IDENTIFICATION; IMAGE DATA PROCESSING OR GENERATION, IN GENERAL; MEASURING; MEASURING ELECTRIC VARIABLES; MEASURING MAGNETIC VARIABLES; MEDICAL OR VETERINARY SCIENCE; PHYSICS; SURGERY; TESTING

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a three-dimensional image generation device or the like which improves efficiency in rendering processing and eliminates mixing of a noise. SOLUTION: Opacity is cumulatively added along a line of sight, and a point at which the accumulated opacity reaches a certain threshold value is determined to be a rendering-finishing point. Then, opacity is cumulatively added in the reverse direction to the line of sight from the rendering-finished point, and a point at which the accumulated opacity reaches a certain threshold value is determined to be a rendering-starting point, and rendering processing is made only to the range between the rendering-starting point thus obtained and the rendering-finishing point thus obtained. When a sampling point of a voxel value does not accord with a lattice point of a voxel, a processing-light method such as the nearest neighborhood approximation method or the like is used, as the approximation method for a voxel value, in searching the rendering-starting point and the rendering-finishing point, and a method capable of generating a high-quality three-dimensional image, such as a linear interpolation approximation method or the like, is used in the rendering processing. COPYRIGHT: (C)2005,JPO&NCIPI