[vtkusers] Augmenting 2D images with 3D polydata

[Tim Soper]

Hi, didn't get a response the first time, but I'm hoping someone has some advice for this:

I am having some trouble thinking of the best way to augment a 2D image with 3D polydata.

I have a medical 2D-3D registration problem where I try to match a 3D scene (in polydata) to a 2D image of the scene. Now that I have done that, I would like to overlay say a 3D path through the scene onto the 2D image (augmented reality). But I need to clip the parts of the path that are not in the scene (say the path points that are around the corner). What is the best way to filter out only visible parts of a the poly data so that I can overlay it onto the 2D image ?

The closest filter I could find is the vtkSelectPolyData. I would have to do something like render the 3D scene, collect the 3D points of the scene from the z-buffer data, then use that as input into the loop coordinates of the vtkSelectPolyData to clip only the visible parts of my path. Then overlay that onto my 2D image...?

Is there an easier way to go about this? ... 



Thanks again

Tim Soper


Research Assistant
University of Washington
Department of Bioengineering 
Box 352142