Usefulness of style transfer functions in medical diagnosis.

For medical and other applications, there is a lack of evaluation of usefulness of processes and tools beyond efficiency. In this paper we look at the usefulness of style transfer functions (style TFs) in volume rendering of large medical data sets as compared to simple Phong shading. We implemented the style TFs of [Bruckner and Gröller 2007] and compared their usefulness for specific visual tasks with the Phong shaded volumes in a controlled experiment with 28 users. When asked about their expectations, 75% (21 users) answered that they expect a better performance with style TFs than with Phong. Style TFs enhance edges, so they seem to increase interpretability of orientation and texture in an image. To see how this expectation holds up in a controlled experiment, our general hypothesis "Users perform better on visual tasks when the style TF is used as compared to simple Phong shading" was tested.