Visualizing diffusion-weighted MRI data using collaborative virtual environment and grid technologies

Abstract

We describe a collaborative virtual environment system for visualization of diffusion magnetic resonance imaging scans. The system represents the 3D (three-dimensional) data by arrays of polyhedra, colored by the degree of anisotropy and directed by the principal component of the diffusion tensor. Users can then collaboratively explore the data and interactively spawn tractography processes that compute tracks that depict white matter fiber pathways through the brain. These tracks are computed on a Grid service currently supporting 72 nodes on a Beowulf cluster.