In this paper

a new 3D soft tissue display scheme is proposed

which consists of four steps: image segmentation

distance transformation

peeling operation and volume rendering. Firstly

an image segmentation method is adopted to detect the contour of skin

and a new binary output image is produced. Secondly

to reduce the computation time

a new 3D Euclidean distance transformation algorithm was adopted to compute the distance map of the medical image. Thirdly

the image data of the scarfskin and subcutaneous fat of the specified depth is removed through peeling operation. Finally

in order to meet the requirement of real time interaction in the medical application

a new multi surface visualization method was adopted

whose rendering time is reduced by only projecting the voxels near the boundaries between the different tissues. Meanwhile

it improves the visualization quality by computing the normal of the point where the ray crosses the iso surface in the projected voxel. This scheme was implemented in the 3D medical image process and analysis system developed by our lab to display the soft tissue of the CT images. The experiment results show that the anatomical structure among the blood vessel

flesh and bone can be visible clearly

and this method has important practical value in clinical diagnosis.