Parallel Processing in Web-Based Interactive Echocardiography Simulators

Abstract

Medical simulation is a new method of education in medicine. It allows training medical students or practitioners without the need to involve patients and makes them familiar with various kinds of examinations, especially related to medical imaging. Simulators that visualize examinations or operations require large computing power to keep time constraints of output presentation. A common approach to this problem is to use graphics processing units (GPU), but the code is not portable. The method of parallelization of processing is more important in component environments, to allow calculating projections in real time. In this paper parallelization issues in the ultrasound view simulation based on provided computer tomography images are analyzed. The proposed domain decomposition for this problem leads to significant reduction in simulation time and allows obtaining an animated visualization for currently available personal computers with multicore processors. The use of a component environment makes the solution portable and makes it possible to implement a web-based application that is the basis for eTraining. The method for creating animation in real time for such solutions is also analyzed.