Multitouch exploration of CT medical data with an iPad and a tabletop display

Abstract

The technological advancement currently led to countless inventions that has changed our daily lives. Multitouch is one of the most widely popular technologies integrated into the majority of our devices. Devices such as smartphones and tablets are by far the most successful touch-enabled devices in the current society. Not only so, the number of fields which are incorporating multitouch into their system are expanding rapidly. Amongst them, medical visualization in the modern healthcare system is one of the upcoming projects. The data from a Computed Tomography (CT) scan can be visualized into a 3D model of a patient’s topography, enabling surgeons to better analyze the patient’s condition. This project aims to develop an application extended over a multitouch tabletop display, which displays the 3D model in real-time and integrating multiple gesture interactions for the users to manipulate the volume object. At the end of this project, an application was developed successfully to meet the requirements of the project. The application includes various basic interactions that allow users to freely manipulate the 3D model. In addition, it also consists of a 3D cross-sectional view of a sliced image that a slicing plane has cut through. The application can be further extended to incorporate other interactions and also onto other platforms in the further for diversity.