Real-Time Interactive Visualization of 3D Models from Bioimaging in a Holographic Pyramid

With modern microscopes, nowadays, in the biomedical domain large numbers of 3D images are acquired. In order to understand the content of these 3D images, suitable interactive visualization techniques are required. Holographic display techniques are potentially suited to this task, as these allow objects to be displayed as true 3D images without the requirement of additional devices for the observers. Additionally, this visualization technique has advantages in a team setting because it allows simultaneous observation of a 3D image in different viewpoints by multiple observers. 3D images are simplified to 3D models, however, these are still complex. The visualization task of 3D models, focusses on the capability to visualize both the outline and inside parts of such models. Conventional implementations of holographic displays fall short with respect to these visualization tasks as the display area is limited and edge effects distract from the real image. In this paper, we propose a real-time interactive visualization method using a holographic pyramid setup and we implement this method in Unity3D. In order to supply interactivity to the setup, a Leap Motion is added. An evaluation of the system performance shows that compared with the conventional method, our method allows models to be visualized in a display area that is 2.25 times as large, without having to increase the size of the display source. Moreover, the boundary of the display area will not be observed on the pyramid surface which contributes to a positive visualization experience. The user evaluation resulted in a SUS score of 73.75, suggesting that the usability level of this interactive visualization system is good. This setup also is applicable to common 3D models which are created from a variation of 3D modelling software.