Transesophageal real-time three-dimensional echocardiography methods and initial in vitro and human in vivo studies.

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to develop a transesophageal probe that: 1) enables on-line representation of the spatial structures of the heart, and 2) enables navigation of medical instruments.

Background: Whereas transthoracic real-time 3-dimensional (3D) echocardiography could recently be implemented, there is still no corresponding transesophageal system. Transesophageal real-time 3D echocardiography would have great potential for numerous clinical applications, such as navigation of catheters.

Basic nonlinear filters as vector algorithms for image processing on graphics units.

We present a vector implementation for nonlinear filters that allows an efficient execution on graphics processing units. These filters are popular to suppress shot noise arising in low light conditions. Having them available at the end of the visualization stage makes this setup particularly suitable for handling the postprocessing stages for light microscopy.