Photorealistic Rendering of the Visible Human

In principle the Visible Human data sets are an ideal basis for building electronic atlases. While it is easy to construct such atlases by just ooering the possibility of browsing through the 2D slices, the construction of realistic 3D models is a huge project. As one rather easy way to establish three-dimensionality, we have registered the Visible Human data to the already existing 3D atlas VOXEL-MAN/brain. The real challenge, however, is the construction of a realistic 3D model. This requires segmentation methods which are taylored for the subsequent visualiza-tion procedure. We have developed an interactive classiication method that describes objects as ellipsoids in RGB-space. Super-sampling and texture mapping based on this classiication deliver photorealistic perspective views.