%O This version is the version of record. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions.
%X Slice by slice visualization of Digital Breast Tomosynthesis (DBT) data is time consuming and can hamper the
interpretation of lesions such as clusters of microcalcifications. With a visualization of the object through multiple
angles, 3D volume rendering (VR) provides an intuitive understanding of the underlying data at once. 3D VR may play
an important complementary role in breast cancer diagnosis. Transfer functions (TFs) are a critical parameter in VR and
finding good TFs is a major challenge. The purpose of this work is to study a methodology to automatically generate TFs
that result in appropriate and useful VR visualizations of DBT data.
For intensity-based TFs, intensity histograms were used to study possible relationships between statistics and critical
intensity values in DBT data. The mean of each histogram has proved to be a valid option to automatically calculate
those critical values that define these functions. At this stage, eight visualizations were obtained by combining several
opacity/color intensity-based functions. Considering the gradient, ten visualizations were obtained. Nine of the ten TFs
were constructed considering the peaks of gradient magnitude histograms. The tenth function was a simple linear ramp.
Finally, three intensity-based and three gradient-based functions were selected and simultaneously used. This resulted in
nine final VR visualizations taking both information into account.
The studied approach allowed an automatic generation of opacity/color TFs based on scalar intensity and gradient
magnitude histograms. In this way, the preliminary results obtained with this methodology are very encouraging about
creating an adequate visualization of DBT data by VR.
%K Digital breast tomosynthesis, volume rendering, 3D visualization, transfer function
%B Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering
%J Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering
%I SPIE
%C Leuven, Belgium
%L discovery10106415
%T Calculation of transfer functions for volume rendering of breast tomosynthesis imaging
%D 2020
%V 11513
%E H Bosmans
%E N Marshall
%E C Van Ongeval
%A AM Mota
%A MJ Clarkson
%A L Orvalho
%A P Almeida
%A N Matela