Abstract
In current clinical practice, radiation therapy planning (RTP) has often
been treated as a two-dimensional (2D) problem, mainly due to the
limitations in visualization technology available to date. The
slice-by-slice display format makes it difficult to visualize the path of
radiation beam not perpendicular to the axis of the CT slices. This
discourages consideration of treatment plans that utilize radiation beam out
of the transverse plane. Human body anatomical structures are inherently
three-dimensional (3D) objects, and tumors and tissues/organs involved in
the RTP are all of 3D shapes. A clear understanding of 3D spatial
relationships among these structures, as well as the anatomic impact of 3D
dose distributions, is essential for designing and evaluating radiation
therapy plans.We have recently made an important breakthrough in the high-resolution
volumetric 3D display technology and have made an initial attempt to apply
it to RTP applications. By “volumetric 3D display,” we
mean that each “voxel” in the displayed 3D images is
located physically at the (${x,\,y,\,z}$) spatial position where it is supposed to be, and emits light
from that position to form real 3D images in the eyes of viewers. We have
demonstrated the feasibility of our system design by building full-scale
prototypes and achieved a multi-color, large display volume, true volumetric
3D display system with a high resolution of over 10 million voxels in a
portable design. This type of true 3D display system is able to present a 3D
image of a patient's anatomy with transparent skin, providing both
physiological and psychological depth cues to oncologists in perceiving and
manipulating radiation beam configuration in true 3D fashion, thus offering
a unique visualization tool to ensure the safety, effectiveness, and speed
of the RTP process.The volumetric 3D display technology holds promise to significantly
enhance the accuracy, safety, and speed of RTP procedures. Such an
“understanding at a glance” capability is necessary to
keep the clinicians from becoming bogged down in details, as he/she would be
if provided only with conventional 2D display of CT slices with overlaid
isodose lines.The main focus of this paper is to provide technical details on the
volumetric 3D display system we developed, and present some initial results
on its capability of displaying true 3D images. While the system design
framework of applying such technology into RTP is introduced, its full scale
clinical applications to RTP is still an ongoing effort and will be reported
later in other publications.
© 2008 IEEE
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