title: Real-time 4D signal processing and visualization using graphics processing unit on a regular nonlinear-k Fourier-domain OCT system.
abstract: We realized graphics processing unit (GPU) based real-time 4D (3D+time) signal processing and visualization on a regular Fourier-domain optical coherence tomography (FD-OCT) system with a nonlinear k-space spectrometer. An ultra-high speed linear spline interpolation (LSI) method for lambda-to-k spectral re-sampling is implemented in the GPU architecture, which gives average interpolation speeds of >3,000,000 line/s for 1024-pixel OCT (1024-OCT) and >1,400,000 line/s for 2048-pixel OCT (2048-OCT). The complete FD-OCT signal processing including lambda-to-k spectral re-sampling, fast Fourier transform (FFT) and post-FFT processing have all been implemented on a GPU. The maximum complete A-scan processing speeds are investigated to be 680,000 line/s for 1024-OCT and 320,000 line/s for 2048-OCT, which correspond to 1GByte processing bandwidth. In our experiment, a 2048-pixel CMOS camera running up to 70 kHz is used as an acquisition device. Therefore the actual imaging speed is camera- limited to 128,000 line/s for 1024-OCT or 70,000 line/s for 2048-OCT. 3D Data sets are continuously acquired in real time at 1024-OCT mode, immediately processed and visualized as high as 10 volumes/second (12,500 A-scans/volume) by either en face slice extraction or ray-casting based volume rendering from 3D texture mapped in graphics memory. For standard FD-OCT systems, a GPU is the only additional hardware needed to realize this improvement and no optical modification is needed. This technique is highly cost-effective and can be easily integrated into most ultrahigh speed FD-OCT systems to overcome the 3D data processing and visualization bottlenecks.
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, The Johns Hopkins University, 3400 N. Charles Street, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA. kzhang8@jhu.edu
authors.forename: Kang
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Jin U
authors.initials: JU
authors.lastname: Kang
mesh_terms: D003196:Computer Graphics; D003199:Computer Systems; D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D005583:Fourier Analysis; D007090:Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted / Q000295:instrumentation*; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional / Q000295:instrumentation*; D017711:Nonlinear Dynamics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted / Q000295:instrumentation*; D041623:Tomography, Optical Coherence / Q000295:instrumentation*