On the evaluation of a semi-automatic vortex flow classification in 4D PC-MRI data of the aorta

In this paper, we report on our experiences that we made during our contributions in the field of the visualization of flow characteristics. Mainly, we focused on the vortex flow classification in 4D PC-MRI as current medical studies assume a strong correlation between cardiovascular diseases and blood flow patterns such as vortices. For further analysis, medical experts are asked to manually extract and classify such vortices according to specific properties. We presented and evaluated techniques that enable a fast and robust vortex classification [MLK* 16, MKP* 16] that supports medical experts. The main focus in this paper is a report that describes our conversations with the domain experts. The dialog was the fundament that gave us the direction of what the experts need. We derived several requirements that should be fulfilled by our tool. From this, we developed a prototype that supports the experts. Finally, we describe the evaluation of our framework and discuss currently limitations.