Authors
Michelle Borkin
Alyssa Goodman
Douglas Alan
Jens Kauffmann
Michael Halle
Abstract
As part of the Astronomical Medicine project at the Initiative in Innovative Computing at Harvard, whose goal is to address common areas of research for astronomical and medical imaging, 3D visualization and analytical techniques developed for medical imaging have been applied to astronomy data. Most astronomy visualization applications and tools are only for two dimensional data, and the few available for three dimensional visualization lack sophisticated graphics and rendering capabilities. In applying programs like 3D Slicer, a medical imaging tool developed at the Surgical Planning Lab at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, to astronomy data we have demonstrated the usefulness of visualizing astronomy data in 3D. Using molecular line maps from the COMPLETE Survey of Star Forming Regions of the Perseus star-forming region, we have been able identify new outflows and shells from young stars, and understand the gas’s hierarchical structure. The Astronomical Medicine project continues to apply new visualization and segmentation techniques to astronomy data, and integrate astronomy specific features into 3D Slicer paving the way for a general scientific visualization tool.
CR Categories and Subject Descriptors
J.2 [Physical Sciences and Engineering]: Astronomy; J.3 [Life and Medical Sciences]: Health; I.4.10 [Image Representation]: Multidimensional – Volumetric.