high performance computing on graphics processing units: hgpu.org

This thesis presents a comparison of high-speed rendering algorithms for the application in 2D/3D-image registration in radiation oncology. Image guided radiation therapy (IGRT) is a technique for improving the treatment of cancer with ionizing radiation by adapting the treatment plan to the current situation using 2D/3D-image registration. To accelerate this procedure, also rendering of Digitally Rendered Radiographs (DRR), as a part of it, has to be performed faster. In the context of this thesis, a GPU based wobbled splat rendering algorithm based on the work of Spoerk et al. (2007) is further improved and compared to a newly developed GPU based ray casting implementation. For comparison, rendering quality and performance as well as the influence on the quality and performance of the overall registration process are measured and analyzed in detail. These results show that both methods are competitive although ray casting has in its current implementation several advantages over wobbled splat rendering.