After analyzing several possible illumination methods, we selected the maximum intensity projection as the method giving the most accurate results. In order to visualize small structures (thin veins), we apply the principles of the sampling theory in order to supply a gapless covering of the vein volume and to avoid sampling errors, while in the same time minimizing the computational effort. Line-oriented filtering is used to enhance the vein contrast. Visual cues like stereo, depth-of-field, depth cueing, prespective, rotation & parallex are employed to significantly increase the depth perception. As an alternative, the usual slice-oriented presentation of the dataset can be presented on the workstation screen, if desired by the physician. Last not least, our approach is fast enough to provide volumetric images of high quality within a few seconds of computation on a commercial modern workstation.
