VR IN MEDICINE - VIRTUAL COLONOSCOPY

Colon/rectal cancer is the second most common cause of death, yet amon g the most preventable when detected in its early stages. The traditio nal diagnostic procedures cause tremendous discomfort and are deeply i nvasive. The motivation for this work is firstly to develop an alterna tive technique to visualise the inner mucosal surface of the colonic w all. This technique will be based on three-dimensional (3D) visualisat ion and virtual reality to perform virtual endoscopy. However, there i s a requirement of vast computational support. Therefore, secondly, th is paper will discuss the possibilities adopting high performance comp uting and networking to support virtual reality medical applications. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V.