Automatic Visualization Pipeline Formation for Medical Datasets on Grid Computing Environment

Distance visualization of large datasets often takes the direction of remote viewing and zooming techniques of stored static images. However, the continuous increase in the size of datasets and visualization operation causes insufficient performance with traditional desktop computers. Additionally, the visualization techniques such as Isosurface depend on the available resources of the running machine and the size of datasets. Moreover, the continuous demand for powerful computing powers and continuous increase in the size of datasets results an urgent need for a grid computing infrastructure. However, some issues arise in current grid such as resources availability at the client machines which are not sufficient enough to process large datasets. On top of that, different output devices and different network bandwidth between the visualization pipeline components often result output suitable for one machine and not suitable for another. In this paper we investigate how the grid services could be used to support remote visualization of large datasets and to break the constraint of physical co-location of the resources by applying the grid computing technologies. We show our grid enabled architecture to visualize large medical datasets (circa 5 million polygons) for remote interactive visualization on modest resources clients. Keywords—Visualization, Grid computing, Medical datasets, visualization techniques, thin clients, Globus toolkit, VTK. Manuscript received October 30, 2007. This research is supported by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation Malaysia and collaboration with Research Management Centre, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia. Aboamama Atahar Ahmed is a PhD candidate at department of computer systems and communications, faculty of computer science and information technology,Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 UTM Skudai Malaysia (phone: (607)-555536503; fax: (607)-5565044; e-mail: [email protected]). Muhammad Shafie Abd Latiff PhD Bradford University, United Kingdom he is now a lecturer and head of computer system & communication department, faculty of computer science and information technology, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 UTM Skudai Malaysia (phone: (607)5532006; fax: (607)-5565044 ;e-mail: [email protected]). Kamalrulnizam bin Abu Bakar PhD Aston University, United Kingdom he is now Lecturer at department of computer systems and communications, faculty of computer science and information technology, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 UTM Skudai Malaysia (phone: (607)-5532382; fax: (607)5565044; e-mail: [email protected]). Zainul Ahmad Rajion is a medical doctor at School of dental sciences, health campus Universiti Sains Malaysia 16150 Kubang Kerian, Kelantan, Malaysia (phone: +609 766 3764; e-mail: [email protected]).