Creating 3D visualizations of MRI data: A brief guide

Madan, Christopher R.

Abstract

While magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data is itself 3D, it is often difficult to adequately present the results papers and slides in 3D. As a result, findings of MRI studies are often presented in 2D instead. A solution is to create figures that include perspective and can convey 3D information; such figures can sometimes be produced by standard functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) analysis packages and related specialty programs. However, many options cannot provide functionality such as visualizing activation clusters that are both cortical and subcortical (i.e., a 3D glass brain), the production of several statistical maps with an identical perspective in the 3D rendering, or animated renderings. Here I detail an approach for creating 3D visualizations of MRI data that satisfies all of these criteria. Though a 3D ‘glass brain’ rendering can sometimes be difficult to interpret, they are useful in showing a more overall representation of the results, whereas the traditional slices show a more local view. Combined, presenting both 2D and 3D representations of MR images can provide a more comprehensive view of the study’s findings.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Sep 7, 2015
• Online Publication Date: Aug 4, 2015
• Publication Date: Aug 4, 2015
• Deposit Date: Aug 21, 2020
• Journal: F1000Research
• Print ISSN: 2046-1402
• Publisher: F1000Research
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 4
• Article Number: 466
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.6838.1
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1882830
• Publisher URL: 10.12688/f1000research.6838.1
• Additional Information: Referee status: Indexed; Referee Report: 10.5256/f1000research.7352.r9794, Jens Foell, Department of Psychology, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA, 06 Aug 2015, version 1, indexed; Referee Report: 10.5256/f1000research.7352.r9899, Anders Eklund, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden, 10 Aug 2015, version 1, indexed; Referee Report: 10.5256/f1000research.7352.r9792, Matthew Wall, Division of Brain Sciences, Imperial College London, London, UK, 07 Sep 2015, version 1, indexed; Grant Information: The author(s) declared that no grants were involved in supporting this work; Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Data associated with the article are available under the terms of the Creative Commons Zero "No rights reserved" data waiver (CC0 1.0 Public domain dedication).