3D Imaging Workstation

The MGI Workstation operates on 3D Image data derived from a variety of sources of section scan data or from Laser surface scans. Developed for Maxillo-facial surgery, this has found many applications in orthopaedic and other surgery. The user can use a variety of cutting, repositioning and joining procedures on the 3D data, which will have been acquired from CT, MRI or even 3D ultrasound. Surface views of the manipulated image can be viewed from any direction; sectional images can be reconstructed along any plane, allowing full assessment of the spatial image structure modified by the user.  This device is an essential part of most of our 3D work. 

The original workstation used a network of Transputers as the processing engine and achieved very fast rates for reconstruction of various types of views, always operating on the original data slices, rather than using geometric reduction such as polygons. Surface views using ray-tracing; interactive multi-planar reformating; MIP and summed voxel projections; cut surfaces; image surgery, involving cutting and joining, model making and various measurement facilities are available.  Versions of it have been installed in a number of hospitals in the UK and elsewhere. A new much more powerful model is now being developed using modern and lower cost technology (PC). This is now available commercially.

Description of workstation functions

Some example images

	Images from CT scans of a patient with a gunshot wound, giving the surgeon a clear picture of the nature and extent of the damage. Gunshot wound Video (mpg 813K) Gunshot wound Video (avi 1720K)
	Detail of base of skull. The movie shows base of skull and the temporo-mandibular joint. TMJ Video (mpg 410K) TMJ Video (avi 619K)
	View down into skull showing floor of orbits and the internal endocranial surface of the base of skull.The highlighted region is a titanium plate repair of the orbital floor.Preplanning this surgery allowed the implant to go very close to the optic nerve to repair the damaged floor without risk of damage to the nerve. Titanium plate Video (mpg 162K) Titanium plate Video (mpg 807K) Titanium plate Video (avi 722K)
	This mpg movie is at high resolution and may not work with all viewers Skull Video (mpg 560K) Skull Video (avi 954K)

Other Clinical Applications:

Malar augmentation	Mandibular repair	Complex fracture analysis	Fetal heart model

For more details of the workstation and its software contact Robin Richards. Email: robin@medphys.ucl.ac.uk