A method for visualizing diffusion-tensor magnetic resonance images,
including the steps of providing a diffusion-tensor magnetic resonance
image (DT-MRI) volume, positioning and orienting a virtual camera for
rendering the volume, the camera having an image plane, the camera's
orientation being defined by its look, right and up vectors, associating
a billboard with each voxel, each the billboard being parallel with the
image plane of the camera, where the look, right and up vectors are used
to orient each the billboard, applying a texture to each billboard, each
the texture being transformed by the inverse of the diffusion tensor
associated with the voxel to which the billboard is associated, and
rendering the volume by rendering each visible billboard in the image
volume, where a 2-dimensional (2D) visualization of the DT-MRI is
produced.