CG2: Project Proposal

For my independent project, I plan to do some experimental work with Volumetric Textures (Hypertextures) based loosely on Ken Perlin's work. Specifically I would like to experiment with using hypertextures as a means for accurately displaying volumetric data in various forms. Some of the things I would like to do include:

 

Volumetric display of MRI data

I have in my possession a series of 280 MRI "slices" of a human head. These are completely anonymous and obtained from Professor Vallino in the SE dept. during a project last year. For that assignment I had to create multi-dimensional reconstructions of the MRI data (specifically from the Sagittal and Coronal planes) from the existing top-down slices. I think it would be very interesting and rewarding to use these images to construct a 3D representation of the data.

 

A screenshot from my original work with the image reconstructions:

 

Volumetric density mapping

In Ken Perlin's paper, he talks about modeling "soft" distributions of data for objects, and in class we used the analogy of the internals of a peach to discuss this. I would like to do something similar, modeling either the structure of a peach or the structure of some other internally-complex object.

 

Three-dimensional Object segmentation

On the above two points, I've begun thinking about the possibilities of "splitting" these hypertextures to simulate fracturing the objects they represent. Using OpenGL's 3D texture support, I believe this would be possible for me to do without overwhelming myself. The support for mapping texture coordinates to vertices should allow me to initially "break" the objects along planes that I construct based on mouse clicking and the camera view. With a little bit of work, I think this would let me interactively peer inside of the objects that I create.

 

Hopefully this is all adequate, and you don't think it is too much or too little work. I'm very interested in all three of these ideas, and I think they'll provide me with enough work over the quarter to keep my busy in between assignments. Plus, the end results SHOULD be very cool!