Searcharxiv⌕ Search
Home/Archive/arXiv

arXiv · astro-ph/0611400

Application of Medical Imaging Software to 3D Visualization of Astronomical Data

Michelle Borkin·Alyssa Goodman·Michael Halle·Douglas Alan
View original source ↗Read source document ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

The AstroMed project at Harvard University's Initiative in Innovative Computing (IIC) is working on improved visualization and data sharing solutions applicable to the fields of both astronomy and medicine. The current focus is on the application of medical imaging visualization and analysis techniques to three-dimensional astronomical data. The 3D Slicer and OsiriX medical imaging tools have been used to make isosurface and volumetric models in RA-DEC-velocity space of the Perseus star forming region from the COMPLETE Survey of Star Forming Region's spectral line maps. 3D Slicer, a brain imaging and visualization computer application developed at Brigham and Women's Hospital's Surgical Planning Lab, is capable of displaying volumes (i.e. data cubes), displaying slices in any direction through the volume, generating 3D isosurface models from the volume which can be viewed and rotated in 3D space, and making 3D models of label maps (for example CLUMPFIND output). OsiriX is able to generate volumetric models from data cubes and allows the user in real time to change the displayed intensity level, crop the models without losing the data, manipulate the model and viewing angle, and use a variety of projections. In applying 3D Slicer to 12CO and 13CO spectral line data cubes of Perseus, the visualization allowed for a rapid review of over 8 square degrees and 150,000 spectra, and the cataloging of 217 high velocity points. These points were further investigated in half of Perseus and all known outflows were detected, and 20 points were identified in these regions as possibly being associated with undocumented outflows. All IIC developed tools, as well as 3D Slicer and OsiriX, are freely available.

Explore related subjects

astro-ph

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

Michelle Borkin, Alyssa Goodman, Michael Halle, Douglas Alan. 2006-11-13. Application of Medical Imaging Software to 3D Visualization of Astronomical Data. https://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0611400

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related papers

arXiv2023

Dark Energy is the Cosmological Quantum Vacuum Energy of Light Particles-The Axion and the Lightest Neutrino

We uncover the general mechanism producing the dark energy(DE). This is only based on well known quantum physics and cosmology. We show that the observed DE originates from the cosmological quantum vacuum of light particles which provides a continuous energy distribution able to reproduce the data. Bosons give positive contributions to the DE while fermions yield negative contributions. As usual in field theory, ultraviolet divergences are subtracted from the physical quantities. The subtractions respect the symmetries of the theory and we normalize the physical quantities to be zero for the Minkowski vacuum. The resulting finite contributions to the energy density and the pressure from the quantum vacuum grow as log a(t) where a(t) is the scale factor, while the particle contributions dilute as 1/a^3(t), as it must be for massive particles. The DE equation of state P = w(z)H turns to be w(z)<-1 with w(z) asymptotically reaching the value -1 from below.A scalar particle can produce the observed DE through its quantum cosmological vacuum provided:(i)its mass is of the order of 10^{-3} eV = 1 meV,(ii) it is very weakly coupled and (iii) it is stable on the time scale of the age of the universe. The axion vacuum thus appears as a natural candidate. The neutrino vacuum (especially the lightest mass eigenstate) can give negative contributions to the DE. We find that w(z=0) is slightly below -1 by an amount ranging from [-1.5 10^{-3}] to [-8 10^{-3}] and we predict the axion mass to be in the range between 4 and 5 meV. We find that the universe will expand in the future faster than the de Sitter universe, as an exponential in the square of the cosmic time. DE arises from the quantum vacua of light particles in FRW cosmological space time in an analogous way to the Casimir effect in Minkowski spacetime with non trivial boundaries.

astro-ph↗
arXiv2023

Scaling of Black Hole Accretion Discs from Gamma-Ray Bursts and Black Hole X-Ray Binaries to Active Galactic Nuclei

I consider how physical processes scale over eight orders of magnitude in black hole mass, from stellar masses in gamma-ray bursts (GRB) and black-hole X-ray binaries (BHXRB) to supermassive active galactic nuclei (AGN). Accretion rates onto stellar mass black holes range over more than sixteen orders of magnitude, from the lower luminosity BHXRB to GRB. These enormous parameter ranges correspond to qualitative as well as quantitative differences in behavior. The fundamental questions involve the balance between nonequilibrium and thermalized plasmas. When energy fluxes exceed a critical value $\sim 10^{29}$ erg/cm$^2$s, as in GRB, a black-body equilibrium pair plasma forms. At the lower fluxes found in AGN, BHXRB and microquasars, accretion power electrodynamically accelerates a small number of very energetic particles, explaining their non-thermal spectra and the high energy gamma-ray emission of blazars. Ultra-high energy cosmic rays may be accelerated by massive black holes, otherwise undetectable, with very low thermal luminosities. New-born fast high-field pulsars may be in the black-body equilibrium regime, resembling SGR in permanent outburst. I also consider the question, significant for the acceleration of nonthermal particles in GRB outflows, of whether collisionless plasmas interpenetrate rather than forming hydrodynamic shocks, and propose this as an alternative to internal shock models of GRB. A new appendix attempts to explain why AGN are, proportionally, more efficient accelerators of energetic particles than stellar mass black holes.

astro-ph↗