Vessel surface generation for surgical simulations

1. Introduction In medical visualization, it is important to know the location of vascular structures. This information can be acquired from medical image data, such as computed tomogra-phy angiography (CTA) or magnetic resonance angiography (MRA). In medical planning systems and real-time visual-ization applications vascular structures are commonly represented by their centerline to reduce complexity. This is often used for dynamic simulations, like surgery simulators. For visualization, a surface has to be generated, where truncated cones are commonly used. The triangular properties fulfill the requirements of dynamic simulations, but they provide surface intersections at the vessel branches. These intersections are visible if the vessels are moved and are not appropriate for interior views. We present a method to generate the surface for a center-line representation of vascular systems, for use in dynamic simulation and interactive visualization with a low resolution approximation and soft transitions at the branches.