Efficient Steoroscopic Rendering in Virtual Endoscopy Applications

Optical endoscopy suffers from several problems which increase the difficulties of a successful intervention. Among these problems are the limited spatial or depth perception, and the fish-eye effect which virtually flattens the geometry of the anatomical structures. Standard virtual endoscopy is inflicted by similar problems. In this paper, we present stereoscopic VIVENDI, an approach for the endoscopic visualization of complex anatomical data which increases the depth and spatial perception significantly. The stereoscopic examinations can be viewed with standard shutter-glasses, or with simple red/blue anaglyph glasses which additionally enable stereoscopic viewing with low-end PC hardware. Efficient rendering has been achieved by modifying an existing culling approach to accommodate stereoscopic imaging.