First multi-year cumulation covers six years: 1965-70.

The visualization of human anatomy for diagnostic, therapeutic, and educational pur poses has long been a challenge for scientists and artists. In vivo medical imaging could not be introduced until the discovery of X-rays by Wilhelm Conrad ROntgen in 1895. With the early medical imaging techniques which are still in use today, the three-dimensional reality of the human body can only be visualized in two-dimensional projections or cross-sections. Recently, biomedical engineering and computer science have begun to offer the potential of producing natural three-dimensional views of the human anatomy of living subjects. For a broad application of such technology, many scientific and engineering problems still have to be solved. In order to stimulate progress, the NATO Advanced Research Workshop in Travemiinde, West Germany, from June 25 to 29 was organized. It brought together approximately 50 experts in 3D-medical imaging from allover the world. Among the list of topics image acquisition was addressed first, since its quality decisively influences the quality of the 3D-images. For 3D-image generation - in distinction to 2D imaging - a decision has to be made as to which objects contained in the data set are to be visualized. Therefore special emphasis was laid on methods of object definition. For the final visualization of the segmented objects a large variety of visualization algorithms have been proposed in the past. The meeting assessed these techniques.

This book is a collection of several tutorials from the EUROGRAPHICS '90 conference in Montreux. The conference was held under the motto "IMAGES: Synthesis, Analysis and Interaction", and the tutorials, partly presented in this volume, reflect the conference theme. As such, this volume provides a unique collection of advanced texts on 'traditional' com puter graphics as well as of tutorials on image processing and image reconstruction. As with all the volumes of the series "Advances in Computer Graphics", the contributors are leading experts in their respective fields. The chapter Design and Display of Solid Models provides an extended introduction to interactive graphics techniques for design, fast display, and high-quality rendering of solid models. The text focuses on techniques for Constructive Solid Geometry (CSG). The follow ing topics are treated in depth: interactive design techniques (specification of curves, surfaces and solids; graphical user interfaces; procedural languages and direct manipulation) and display techniques (depth-buffer, scan-line and ray-tracing techniques; CSG classification techniques; efficiency-improving methods; software and hardware implementations).

In recent years there have been major advances in the fields of cardiovascular nuclear medicine and cardiac magnetic resonance imaging. In nuclear cardiology more adequate tomographic systems have been designed for routine cardiac use, as well as new or improved quantitative analytic software packages both for planar and tomographic studies implemented on modern state-of-the-art workstations. In addition, artificial intelligence techniques are being applied to these images in attempts to interpret the nuclear studies in a more objective and reproducible manner. Various new radiotracers have been developed, such as antimyosin, labeled isonitriles, metabolic compounds, etc. Furthermore, alternative stress testing with dipyridamole and dobutamine has received much attention in clinical cardiac practice. Magnetic resonance imaging is a relative newcomer in cardiology and has already shown its merits, not only for anatomical information but increasingly for the functional aspects of cardiac performance. This book covers almost every aspect of quantitative cardiovascular nuclear medicine and magnetic resonance imaging. It will assist the nuclear medicine physician, the radiologist, the physicist/image processing specialist and the clinical cardiologist in understanding the nuclear medicine techniques used in cardiovascular medicine, and in increasing our knowledge of cardiac magnetic resonance imaging.