R_Bibb_Medical_Modelling_The_Application_of_Adv.pdf

42 Medical modelling
4.7 Region selected using a decreased lower threshold value.
thresholds, or add or remove pixels from selected regions to alter the boundaries.
The exact nature of these functions will depend on the software being
used; therefore, it is not appropriate to attempt to describe them all here.
4.2 Using CT data – a worked example
To illustrate how such software can be used, let us work through a simple
example using the popular software package called Mimics (Materialise
NV, Technologielaan 15, 3001 Leuven, Belgium). The fi rst step is to import
the data. In most cases, the data will be in a format that is compliant
with the internationally recognised DICOM (Digital Imaging and
Communications in Medicine) format. If this is the case, the software has
an automatic import function. During importing, the software converts the
images into a format it recognises as its own and displays the resulting axial
images on the screen. The axial images are the original scan images from
the CT data. Mimics software also uses the axial pixel data and the slice
distance to calculate images in the sagittal and coronal planes as shown in
Fig. 4.8.