Master's Thesis - Studierstube Augmented Reality Project - Graz ...

Figure 1.1: This workflow diagram describes the traversal of the measured raw data.
Data acquisition is marked with (A) and described in chapter 3. Following the first
arrow rightwards leads to the data preprocessing (B) which is described in chapter 4.
From the preprocessing-Toolkit module on, the user has to perform some data improvement
(C). The processed data is stored in files (D). These files are used in combination
with the anatomic raw images from (A) by our flow visualization framework (E). This
framework is further discussed in chapter 4 and chapter 5. (A) and (D) belong to the
data layer, (B) and (D) to the application layer and (C) needs user interaction. The
arrows additionally indicate the course of the data flow.
For experiments we have accomplished several collateral PC-MRI measurements
at the radiology department of the Landesklinikum Graz and the Diagnostikzentrum
Graz. Besides the acquisition of datasets from real human hearts, a flow phantom
was built to measure flow through an artificial narrowing. The results of this setup
compared to real human blood flow are presented in chapter 6. Performance analyses
of all implemented visualization techniques are compared on two reference PC-systems
in section 6.4.
Finally a forecast for future possibilities is made in chapter 7. Among others, further
developments may be seen in the fast and accurate calculation of derived flow quantities
and better control mechanisms for an arbitrary interactive visualization. Quantities
derived from velocity values could be partial pressure differences or correlated tissue
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