Visualization of the internal carotid artery using MRA images.

A virtual angioscopy system is implemented to visualize the inside of the internal carotid artery (ICA) for qualitative assessment of carotid artery stenosis using magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) images. The carotid artery is one of the body regions not accessible by real optical endoscopy but can be visualized with virtual endoscopy. In order to visualize the carotid artery, it is segmented using the region-growing algorithm after locating the initial seed on the presegmented binary image. The ICA is separated from the external carotid artery (ECA) using a priori knowledge of the anatomic structure after bifurcation. A fly-through path is computed based on the medial axis transform (MAT) to automatically move the virtual camera from the common carotid artery (CCA) to the ICA. Considering interactive rendering speed and usability of standard graphic hardware, the surface-rendering algorithm with the perspective projection method is used to generate an endoscopic view of the ICA. In addition, the endoscopic view with the raycasting algorithm is provided for off-line navigation of the carotid artery. Virtual angioscopy is highly recommended as a diagnostic tool for identifying the specific location of the stenosis and for analyzing the stenosis qualitatively. The virtual angioscopy system for carotid artery will benefit radiological diagnostics, medical education, surgical planning and postoperative assessment.