UCSC-CRL-90-42: DIRECT VOLUME RENDERING OF CURVILINEAR VOLUMES

09/01/1990 09:00 AM
Computer Science
Direct volume rendering makes it possible to visualize sampled 3D scalar data as a continuous medium or to extract features, avoiding the necessity of making binary decisions inherent in methods which extract geometrical representations. However, direct rendering is generally slow and images must be recomputed, to a significant extent, for different viewpoints. Furthermore, most algorithms for direct volume rendering have assumed rectilinear gridded data. This paper discusses methods for using direct volume rendering when the original volume is curvilinear, i.e., is divided into six-sided cells which are not necessarily equilateral hexahedra. One approach is to ray-cast such volumes directly. An alternative approach is to interpolate the sample volumes to a rectilinear grid, and use this regular volume for rendering. Advantages and disadvantages of the two appraoches in terms of speed and image quality are explored.

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