The Viewing Wand

The system used in Operating Room, ``The Viewing Wand'' (vw), is another ISG product. It imports images and segmented data from the Allegro via magnetic tapes. The software runs on a standard HP Unix workstation (vw_screen) and offers the following features:

• two-dimensional views of the volumetric data in any reformat plane (axial, sagittal, coronal, parallel or perpendicular to the probe),
• three-dimensional surface rendering of any segmented object,
• 3-D objects may be cut or be viewed with transparency,
• registration by homologous point matching and by surface matching of image and patient and
• navigation within the volumetric data by showing the current position of the localizing device. In 2-D, a cross-hair indicates the position of the pointing device while in 3-D, this is achieved by showing a rendered image of the probe in relation with other 3-D objects.

Although segmentation is currently performed on a different machine than the one used in the operating room, it is expected that shortly, all the facilities will be included in a single unit. In addition, a research version of the Viewing Wand developed at the MNI contains the following additional features [13]:

• integration of PET, MRA and DSA imaging modalities and
• stereoscopic display of any 3-D reconstructed surfaces, of maximum intensity projection MRA data, or of DSA projections.