Body-centered visualisation for freehand 3-D ultrasound

Three dimensional (3-D) ultrasound (US) data is typically visualised by any -plane slicing, volume rendering or surface rendering. Typical implementati ons of these techniques do not readily convey the spatial relationship betw een the visualised data and the patient's body, something that is particula rly important when the data are reviewed after the scan has taken place, pe rhaps by a remote expert who did not even perform the scan. This paper desc ribes a facility to register the 3-D US data to the patient's body and then display the data correctly superimposed on a rendered mannequin (rigid com puter model). This way, the user can appreciate the position and orientatio n of any visualisation with respect to the patient's body. The facility rel ies on efficient implementation of progressive meshes to manage the level o f detail of the mannequin model. (C) 2000 World Federation for Ultrasound i n Medicine & Biology.