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Digital medical imaging modalities construct and display images as cross-sections of anatomy. The technologies of these digital imaging systems are moving towards thinner cross-section thicknesses, higher spatial resolutions, and larger dynamic ranges. These imaging modalities provide cross-sectional displays in which there is no superimosing of organs. This provides relatively precise two-dimensional geometric information. In regarding the general three-dimensional (3-D) space relationships among a number of anatomic structures is difficult to acquire from a large number of thin serial sections. Clinicians are required to visualize such information by mentally stacking these serial sections to obtain the complete structure. A number of 3-D surface reconstruction algorithms have been developed for displaying 3-D anatomic structures on raster graphic displays. This paper will present a comparison among these reconstruction algorithms for: (1) computation time; (2) algorithm complexity; (3) computer storage requirements; and (4) clinical efficacy. The authors will report on a three-year study of the clinical utilization of 3-D display algorithms using raster graphic display systems.© (1983) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.