CT-based simulation of fluoroscopy and DSA for endovascular surgery training

This paper describes a method of fluoroscopy simulation for an endovascular surgery training system. Fluoroscopic and DSA images are generated by simulating the X-ray process using CT data. In order to achieve interactive frame rates, the visualization process is divided into two stages: a preprocessing stage, and an interactive rendering stage. In the preprocessing stage, the CT-data is segmented, a separate dataset is generated for bone, soft tissue, and vessels, and a simulated X-ray image is generated for each of these datasets. In the rendering stage, these intermediate images are warped, filtered, and blended to obtain a simulated fluoroscopic or DSA image. Since the operations in the rendering stage map well onto texture mapping hardware, interactive frame rates can be obtained. The resulting images are of sufficient quality to be used in the training system.