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What is High Definition Volume Rendering®?

High Definition Volume Rendering® is a proprietary technique, developed by Fovia, that delivers unparalleled image quality and rendering performance. Comparing Fovia’s High Definition Volume Rendering® to “traditional” volume rendering is like comparing high definition television to traditional television – in both cases, the “High Definition” version produces far sharper and crisper images.

Does anyone else deliver the quality and performance of Fovia’s HDVR® engine?

No. It is too computationally intensive for traditional volume rendering methods to achieve interactive High Definition Volume Rendering®.

Can I preview the quality and performance of HDVR® on your website?

Yes. Movies and images rendered with our HDVR® engine can be found under the gallery menu.

How can I be sure that your quality and performance are really that good?

See it for yourself. The best way to appreciate High Definition Volume Rendering® is via a side-by-side comparison. The exact same datasets (that you provide) should be rendered with both Fovia’s HDVR® engine and your current volume rendering solution and the quality and performance should be compared side-by-side. We’re confident that once you experience High Definition Volume Rendering®, you will not want to return to your current solution. Please e-mail us at sales@fovia.com to inquire about arranging a side-by-side comparison.

Do you use supersampling?

Yes. Supersampling is the only rendering mode we use, which is one of the keys to the quality of our HDVR® engine.

Do you ever use data downsampling or sub-volume resampling?

No. Although most of our competitors use these techniques, High Definition Volume Rendering® would not be possible if we did.

Do you require any video cards or specialized processor boards?

No. Both of these approaches result in significant scalability limitations. We are a true, software-only solution.

Does your solution work with off-the-shelf hardware?

Yes. Fovia’s HDVR® engine works with any off-the-shelf hardware that meets the following requirements: laptop or desktop with Intel/AMD x86-32/64-SSE2 and 1GB memory. Since our solution is highly scalable, additional processing power and larger memory will increase performance very efficiently.

Do you preprocess any data?

No.

Can your rendering parameters be modified on-the-fly?

Yes. Our HDVR® engine allows users maximum flexibility to modify ALL rendering parameters in real time, without preprocessing and without any speed or quality penalties. This is an essential element of our solution.

What rendering types do you support?

We support Parallel and Perspective Volume Rendering, MIP, Fading MIP, MPR, Curved MPR, RaySum and MinIP.

What is the largest dataset you can render?

The volume 4096x4096x4096 is the current upper limit for our HDVR® engine, far larger than the images being generated by state-of-the-art scanners (which typically generate slices that are 512x512x“Z”).

What is the difference between “rendering” data and “handling” data?

Other volume rendering solutions claim they can handle 4,000 slices, but this is not the same as being able to render them. These solutions downsample or resample sub-volumes of the original data, as they are unable to truly render the entire dataset. Our HDVR® engine can actually render these large volumes, resulting in superior quality and performance.

Do you support client/server architecture?

Yes. The ability to deliver non-compromised remote renderings (including via the internet or over wireless connections) is one of the main advantages of our system. With our HDVR® architecture, any networked PC or laptop can serve as an advanced 3D processing workstation, enabling a paradigm shift in medical imaging workflow. To ensure maximum flexibility, we support both Windows and Macintosh-based clients.

Do you support multi-CPU platforms?

Yes. Our HDVR® engine is optimized for 16 CPUs and can effectively utilize from 1 to 16 CPUs.

How scalable is your HDVR® engine in a multi-CPU environment?

Fovia’s non-video card-based architecture provides near linear scalability for up to 16 CPUs. Competitive solutions that rely on brute force volume rendering and/or video cards will saturate memory bandwidth with just 1-2 CPUs.

How scalable is your HDVR® engine with larger datasets?

Extremely scalable. To illustrate, let’s compare two datasets – 512x512x512 vs. 512x512x4096. The 4096 slice dataset is 8 times larger than the 512 slice dataset, and one might expect it to be rendered 8x slower. With our HDVR® engine, however, the speed difference is not 8x, but approximately 10%.

How scalable is your HDVR® engine for larger projection matrices?

Extremely scalable. First, unlike many alternative approaches, we do not stretch our images, and all images, large or small, are generated directly by our High Definition Volume Rendering® engine. To illustrate scalability, let’s compare two projections – 512x512 vs.1024x1024. The larger projection is 4 times bigger than the smaller one, and one might expect it to be rendered 4x slower. With our HDVR® engine, however, the speed difference is not 4x, but approximately 1.7x.

Do you support cluster configurations?

Yes. Our HDVR® engine is “cluster ready.” We support clustering at both the DCOM and TCP/IP levels, providing maximum flexibility to suit your architectural requirements.

Why do you have so many questions on your website about scalability?

We believe that scalability is one of the most important issues facing the medical imaging industry. The amount of data being acquired by modern scanners is growing extremely rapidly, placing increasing pressure on volume rendering technologies. Our algorithms and architecture are designed to take full advantage of the future directions in both medical imaging and computing – larger datasets, larger projection displays, dual-core processors, multi-CPU environments and clustering – without sacrificing quality or performance. Not only does our HDVR® engine provide unparalleled image quality and rendering performance today, but our solution is designed to broaden the gap between us and our competitors in the future. Solutions that rely on specialized hardware and/or video cards are at a significant disadvantage in terms of scalability.

Do you support segmentation?

Yes. We support instant, point-and-click segmentation, arbitrary cut planes and freehand cutting.

Do you support measurement?

Yes. We support instant, point-and-click measurement, accurate to the subvoxel level.

Do you require OpenGL, DirectX or any third-party 3D graphic library?

No. We do not require OpenGL, DirectX or any third-party 3D graphic library; our code is self-sufficient.

What operation systems do you support?

We support Microsoft Windows 2000/XP/2003, RedHat Linux, and other Linux-based distributions supported by Intel’s C++/8.0 compiler.

What type of output images do you support?

We support output images up to 4096X4096 pixels with no stretching. Supported image formats inlude 24-bit RGB, 256 levels of gray and JPEG/PNG for client/server mode.

Do you stretch rendering images to support large viewports?

No. Our HDVR® engine does not stretch rendering images to support large viewports. We support any viewport up to 4096x4096 pixels without stretching.

What kind of transfer functions do you support?

We support Opacity and RGB transfer functions for volume rendering, and window level for MIP, Fading MIP, MPR, MinIP and RaySum. All transfer functions are modifiable interactively with no performance impact.

Do you support on-the-fly auto-navigation for fly-through?

Yes. Fly-through does not require precomputation of the fly-path, and therefore can be adjusted interactively.

Do you support stereoscopic imaging?

Yes. See the stereo images section of our website, under the gallery menu.

Can I see a list of your features?

Yes. See the features section of our website, under the products menu.

What fields do you support in addition to medical imaging?

We support any field that uses volumetric data, including the biosciences, geosciences and industrial engineering. See “Data” Format” under the features section of our website. E-mail us at info@fovia.com for additional information.

Why haven’t I heard of you?

We have devoted nearly all of our time and resources developing the world’s only High Definition Volume Rendering® solution, and virtually none for marketing and related activities.

How do I know you are credible? Do you have any customers?

GE Healthcare, the world’s largest manufacturer and distributor of medical imaging equipment, is our first customer.

Who is your target market?

We are currently licensing our technology on an OEM basis to modality manufacturers, PACS companies and other entities that can benefit from integrating our High Definition Volume Rendering® engine into their products. If you are an OEM that is interested in integrating our solution, e-mail us at sales@fovia.com to arrange for a demonstration. If you are an end user (i.e., a physician) who wants to use our solution, tell your modality manufacturer and PACS vendor that you want High Definition Volume Rendering® by Fovia, and e-mail us at sales@fovia.com so we can follow-up with them as well.

How easy is it to integrate your HDVR® engine?

Very easy. We are strictly an OEM supplier, and we have built our solution to be extremely easy to integrate. All of the rendering parameters (including rendering type) are united in one structure. We use pure C++ wrapping, which is identical for Windows, Macintosh and UNIX.

How do I learn more?

E-mail us at info@fovia.com with your questions or to arrange for a demonstration.