From: Avatar@dorsai.dorsai.org (Sean Farquharson)
Subject: TECH: 3-D-E
Date: Thu, 12 Oct 1995 22:47:17 GMT


I have limited funds and as part of my project I need to built 3d computer
objects form serial crossectional data (From CAT scan data). I thought
that this would be simple because I remember from my college days thaton
my old Amiga I had a program that coast less that $100 called SCULPT 3D
that had and UNSLICE funtion which would take serial crossections stacked
on top of each over and construct a 3d object.  No proplem I thought, we
can trace the areas of interest from the CAT scan into a simple program
and it will produce a 3d object (in some standard format) that we can then
use for the rest of our project. 

THE PROBLEM: Well I've grown up and I'm using PCs now and after and long
search the only thing I've found that sounds like it will do this on the
PC is called 3-D-E (see the blurb bellow), but it's a bit too expensive
for our funding (this 3d model building is a minor part of the project).
Does anyone know of a less expensive (or even PD) PC program (or code)
that will do this? 

please send me e-mail:

Sean farquharson
Avatar@dorsai.dorsai.org

Here's info on 3-D-E:

> 3-D-E
> 
> 3-D-E Visualiser and Contour Editor 3-D-E, supplied by Data Cell, is a
> Windows based software product designed to take 2D image data and
> reconstruct to a 3-D surface rendered object. It allows the user to view,
> rotate and zoom under mouse control in real time on a 486 PC.
> 
> Applications:
> 
>    * Confocal Microscopy
>    * Cell Analysis
>    * MRI and CT Scanning
>    * Sequence Tracking
>    * Laser Profiling
>    * Research and Development
> 
> 3-D-E comes with a contour editor used to generate a wire frame data set
> from 2-D images and a Visualiser which takes the wire frame data and renders
> it using lighting, camera and shading parameters.
> 
> Visualiser Features:
> 
>    * Accepts 3-D data from the Contour Editor or ASCII file.
>    * Real Time Zooming and Rotating under mouse control
>    * Ability to view inside by interactively changing cut plane.
>    * External and internal Rendering
> 
> More than one object can be viewed at once and rotated independently while
> objects of different colours maybe defined within an object to show internal
> workings. The image window can be copied into the clipboard and pasted into
> word-processing and graphical packages for report generation.
> 
> The Contour Editor is used to load a set of image slices and define them as
> a sequence with a Z distance between each slice. The contour of each image
> is drawn around the perimeter using the mouse in a point and click fashion.
> Contours are then repeated and edited for subsequent images until all
> contours have been drawn. The constructed object can be seen in the Viewer
> by launching it from the editor.
> 
> As well as manually drawing contours, boundary points can be loaded in from
> packages like Optimas where they are generated automatically. An Optimas
> macro is available which generates boundary points of a chosen segment
> length and converts the data to a contour file. In addition, the macro can
> be linked to the Sequence Extension available with Optimas to automate the
> complete image set.
> 
> Contour Editor Features:
> 
>    * Uses Industry Standard file formats including tif, bmp and jpg
>    * Contours can be re-edited at any stage
>    * Contours can be pasted between slices and shifted, rotated and zoomed.
>    * Generates ASCII files for loading into the 3-D Viewer
>    * Several files can be pasted together to generate objects within objects
> 
> Both the Editor and Visualiser come with full on-line help and a manual that
> explains the technical aspects of the software.
> 
>    * Platforms: PC (Windows).
>    * Cost: #995, (~$1500).
>    * Email: imaging@datacell.co.uk
>    * Contact:
> 
>              Data Cell Ltd.
>              01628 415415
>              01628 415400 (fax)
>

-- 

Sean Farquharson
Avatar@dorsai.dorsai.org