

The described work is part of the COVIRA project whose goal is to provide prototypes of clinical workstations for neuroradiological diagnostics and therapy, neurosurgery and 3D radiation therapy for evaluation in several hospitals. An important aspect is the 3D reconstruction and visualisation of the cerebral vessel tree based on several DSA projections combined with an MRA volume data set. This combination promises a higher resolution than that yielded by MRA data alone. This paper presents tools for supporting the 3D reconstruction: the segmentation of blood vessels, the extraction of vessel intensities, diameters and centre lines. During the 3D reconstruction these features reduce the ambiguity that is present when only segmented binary image are used. A further application of these tools is the enhanced representation of blood vessels in 2D images. Blood vessels down to a diameter of 2 pixels can be intensified and visualised even if they are poorly filled with contrast agent. In a first evaluation radiologists confirmed the improved quality and the detailed resolution.