PRELIMINARY-RESULTS OF A MODIFIED SURFACE RENDERING TECHNIQUE IN THE DISPLAY OF MAGNETIC-RESONANCE ANGIOGRAPHY IMAGES

Maximum intensity projections are the currently accepted method of dis playing Magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) data. In this study, we i ntroduce a modified surface rendering method for displaying this same MRA data. The system we have developed is designed to reconstruct thre e-dimensional (3D) images of vasculature using standard magnetic reson ance images. A workstation was used for post-processing that is readil y available and inexpensive. Software was written to process the origi nal images and control the commercially available surface rendering al gorithm while performing the reconstruction. The standard surface rend ering technique was modified by including several velocities of blood flow in the reconstruction. These velocities were assigned varying deg rees of translucency, which allow flow information to be included in t he reconstructed images. Six subjects were examined using this techniq ue and the images were compared with those from other imaging modaliti es. This surface rendering method has been shown to produce clearer an d more comprehensible images of complex vasculature, both for radiolog ists, and for physicians of other disciplines. Its success is based on improvements in computing techniques and in acquisition of vascular M R images. The method shows great potential, and with future clinical t rials, the true uses of this method will be discovered or confirmed.