UCSC-CRL-90-38: A COHERENT PROJECTION APPROACH FOR DIRECT VOLUME RENDERING

08/01/1990 09:00 AM
Computer Science
Direct volume rendering using semi-transparency offers the opportunity to visualize all of a three-dimensional sample volume in one image. However, because all cells may contribute something to the image, processing such images can be very expensive and good quality high- resolution images are far from interactive. This paper introduces a projection approach for directly rendering sample volumes that takes advantage of coherence combined with the polygon rendering facilities of the newer graphics machines to produce images (relatively) quickly. It projects each volume cell as one to seven polygons, calculates color and opacity for each vertex, and interpolates across the polygons to render the cell. In its fastest form, the interpolation is linear in color and opacity and amounts to Gouraud shaded polygon scan conversion. It is limited to rectilinear sample volumes rendered without perspective.

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