Paper
15 April 1996 High-performance image processing on the desktop
Stephen D. Jordan
Author Affiliations +
Abstract
The suitability of computers to the task of medical image visualization for the purposes of primary diagnosis and treatment planning depends on three factors: speed, image quality, and price. To be widely accepted the technology must increase the efficiency of the diagnostic and planning processes. This requires processing and displaying medical images of various modalities in real-time, with accuracy and clarity, on an affordable system. Our approach to meeting this challenge began with market research to understand customer image processing needs. These needs were translated into system-level requirements, which in turn were used to determine which image processing functions should be implemented in hardware. The result is a computer architecture for 2D image processing that is both high-speed and cost-effective. The architectural solution is based on the high-performance PA-RISC workstation with an HCRX graphics accelerator. The image processing enhancements are incorporated into the image visualization accelerator (IVX) which attaches to the HCRX graphics subsystem. The IVX includes a custom VLSI chip which has a programmable convolver, a window/level mapper, and an interpolator supporting nearest-neighbor, bi-linear, and bi-cubic modes. This combination of features can be used to enable simultaneous convolution, pan, zoom, rotate, and window/level control into 1 k by 1 k by 16-bit medical images at 40 frames/second.
© (1996) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
Stephen D. Jordan "High-performance image processing on the desktop", Proc. SPIE 2707, Medical Imaging 1996: Image Display, (15 April 1996); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.238465
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Cited by 2 scholarly publications.
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KEYWORDS
Image processing

Visualization

Medical imaging

Convolution

Image quality

Zoom lenses

Image enhancement

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