Visualization of Large Image Data Volumes Using PACS and Advanced Postprocessing Methods

Computed tomography has experienced tremendous technological developments since its introduction more than 30 years ago. Acquisition of single images took several minutes on the first scanners in the 1970s. The introduction of spiral CT in the early nineties was one of the milestones of CT history, resulting in fundamental and far-reaching improvements of CT imaging, and opening a spectrum of entirely new applications, like CTA with new visualization techniques like MPR, MIP or even VRT (Kalender et al. 1990; Crawford and King 1990; Kalender 1995). For the first time it became possible to perform volumetric imaging of larger scan ranges in a single breath-hold, effectively avoiding misregistration artifacts. However, the goal of isotropic imaging of large scan ranges within one breath-hold could not be reached. As a result, compromises had to be accepted between scan range, longitudinal resolution and scan time.