Introduction
May 2006 - August 2007
Summary
The biomedical data visualization research was conducted under the supervision of Dr. David Russomanno from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engieering and Dr. Amy de Jongh Curry from the Department of Biomedical Engineering. The focus of the work was the development of an interactive data visualization defibrillation simulation known as DefibViz. My contribution to the research was visualizing the voltage gradients across the myocardium using geometric rendering techniques and a three-dimensional slice plane widget that allowed for interactive exploration of the volumetric dataset. The research led to one journal paper and is used in the research and development department at a leading biomedical engineering corporation.
An alternative visualization method known as hinge -slicing was added to the visualization capabilities of the tool. Hinge slicing enables folding, rotating a fold, cutting a fold, and stair- stepping through a volumetric dataset. The additional visualization technique added to DefibViz led to a conference paper.
Relevant Publications
ABSTRACT
D.J. Russomanno, A.L. Curry, G.S. Atanasova, L.C. Hunt, and J.C. Goodwin (2007) “DefibViz: A
Visualization Tool for the Assessment of Electrode Parameters on Transthoracic Defibrillation
Thresholds,” IEEE Transactions on Information Technology in Biomedicine
ABSTRACT
J. Qualls, D.J. Russomanno, and J.C. Goodwin (2007) “Hinged-Sliced Visualization of Defibrillation
Induced Voltage Gradients,” The 2007 International Conference on Modeling, Simulation and
Visualization Methods
DefibViz
Below is the start panel. The user places the electrodes, selects the voltage level, and then begins the FEA simulation.
Below is volume and geometric renderings of an aorta.
DefibViz with Hinge Slicer
The user selects points within the 3D dataset to form lines and cut planes. The cut planes can be moved interactively throughout the dataset.
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Below is the result of two different hinge slices:
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Conference
Back
Hinged-Sliced Visualization of Defibrillation Induced Voltage Gradients
DefibViz is a research application developed
for defibrillation simulation and visualization. Both
geometric rendering and interactive exploration of
volume data techniques are exploited in DefibViz.
DefibViz includes use of three-dimensional (3-D) slice
plane widgets such that the distribution of the voltage
gradient induced by a simulated shock can be visually
inspected throughout the heart and torso. This paper
presents an extension to DefibViz with hinged-sliced
interaction to explore the volumetric datasets. As part of
our work, hinge-slicing source code has been extracted
from a prior stand-alone application and enhanced so
that it can be more readily integrated into visualization
applications.
Journal
Back
DefibViz: A
Visualization Tool for the Assessment of Electrode Parameters on Transthoracic Defibrillation
Thresholds
DefibViz is a software application developed for defibrillation simulation and visualization. It exploits both surface techniques and methods for the interactive exploration of volumetric datasets for the analysis of transthoracic defibrillation simulation results. DefibViz has a graphical user interface for the specification of the shape, size, position, and applied voltage of a defibrillator’s electrodes. An option is provided for using three-dimensional slice plane widgets, which operate on the volumetric datasets, such that the distribution of the voltage gradient induced by an electric shock can be visually inspected in various tissues throughout the torso and myocardium. There is also functionality to threshold the magnitude of the voltage gradient to be visualized via boundaries specified by the user. One goal of DefibViz is to enhance understanding of how electrode parameters relate to the change of the voltage gradient distribution throughout the heart, which may help lead to optimal defibrillator design. DefibViz is significant in that it integrates simulation and visualization software, which previously required the running of several independent software executables, into an enhanced, seamless, and comprehensive software application.
