The October 2023 issue of IEEE Spectrum is here!

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Brain Beauty Contest

Computer modelers compete to show neurosurgeons the best path to the tumor

1 min read

No, the tumor hasn’t exploded. In this visualization, the purple and green rays “shine” brightest where it’s safest to approach.

Plotting the path to a brain tumor first requires a map. As part of next week’s VisWeek conference, the 2010 IEEE Visualization Contest pitted graphics teams from both industry and academia against one another to see who could best draw that map. Each team transformed the same sets of MRI data into unique, and sometimes bizarre, pictures of the safest paths through the brain. Neurosurgeons decided the winner.

Next year’s contest to model the turbulence from a fluid pump is already accepting submissions.

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back view of man in baseball cap holding controllers for robot arms, which are in silhouette in front of him, just outside of the shadows

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