Will Cinematic Rendering for Diagnostic Tools Materialize?
First, what is cinematic rendering?
Cinematic rendering is an advanced 3D reconstruction technique that, creates photorealistic 3D images from CT and MRI data. This technique was inspired by the animated movie industry’s success in creating highly realistic-looking characters, hence the name cinematic rendering. Cinematic rendering follows the same steps as volume rendering in terms of determining color and opacity using, the gray value in each voxel of the original images and mapping to a color and opacity value using transfer functions. However, the cinematic technique enhances the lighting model by using multi-light-rays in multi-path tracing methods which simulate different paths of billions of photons traveling from all possible directions through a volumetric dataset. The result is an amazing photo-realistic image.
So, the question is: Will cinematic rendering for clinical diagnostic use materialize?
The simple answer is, we do not know yet. Although this technique is already popular in both the education and training fields, it is still being researched all around the world, and papers are being published indicating that cinematic rendering might have viable diagnostic value.
At Shina Systems, we do not feel that we need to wait for any such determination. We believe it has value beyond diagnostic, as a form of communication media and a way to bring volumetric CT and MRI data to non-radiologists.
We at Shina systems, one of the first companies to offer advanced 3D to wide audiences, believe in adapting the latest advanced visualization technology for our future applications and investing in using this technique for use of the 3Di product line, making it available to audiences beyond the large modality vendor users.
Sources: Cinematic Rendering in CT, August 2017,Volume 209 number2