Blood flow visualization in immersive environment based on color Doppler images

An accurate grasp of blood flow patterns in a human heart is important to evaluate cardiac diseases of patients. The Doppler ultrasound method is widely used to visualize blood flow patterns and has obtained excellent results in diagnosis. However, the output from the Doppler ultrasound method is usually represented as a two-dimensional image, though blood flow patterns have three-dimensional complex structure and change dynamically. Therefore, improvement of both data acquisition and data visualization techniques is indispensable for diagnosis of the cardiac faculty. It is worth mentioning that visualization also dominates the level of understanding as data acquisition, because poor visualization ruins the value of the most accurate results of measurement as if it were nothing. The authors construct an interactive visualization system suitable for three-dimensional blood flow, utilizing the immersive projection display. With the developed visualization system, which possesses interactivity and a wide field of view, users can easily understand the state of entire flow, such as the occurrence of turbulence, and the patterns of blood flow.