A DIRECT VOLUME RENDERING FRAMEWORK FOR THE INTERACTIVE EXPLORATION OF HIGHER-ORDER AND MULTIFIELD DATA

Felix Manke, Burkhard Wünsche

2008

Abstract

Direct Volume Rendering is a popular method for displaying volumetric data sets without generating intermediate representations. The technique is most frequently applied to scalar data and few specialized techniques exist for visualizing higher-order data, such as tensor fields, directly. This is a serious limitation because progress in medical imaging, satellite technology and numerical simulations has made higher-order and multifield data sets a common entity in medicine, science and engineering. In this paper we present a framework for the interactive exploration of complex data sets using direct volume rendering. This is achieved by applying sophisticated Software Engineering (SE) to modularize the direct volume rendering pipeline and by exploiting the latest advances in graphics hardware and shading languages to modify rendering effects and to compute derived data sets at runtime. We discuss how the framework can be used to mimic the latest specialized direct volume rendering algorithms and to interactively explore and gain new insight into high-order and multifield data sets. The capabilities of the framework are demonstrated by three case studies and the efficiency and effectiveness of the framework is evaluated.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Manke F. and Wünsche B. (2008). A DIRECT VOLUME RENDERING FRAMEWORK FOR THE INTERACTIVE EXPLORATION OF HIGHER-ORDER AND MULTIFIELD DATA . In Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Computer Graphics Theory and Applications - Volume 1: GRAPP, (VISIGRAPP 2008) ISBN 978-989-8111-20-3, pages 199-206. DOI: 10.5220/0001096501990206

in Bibtex Style

@conference{grapp08,
author={Felix Manke and Burkhard Wünsche},
title={A DIRECT VOLUME RENDERING FRAMEWORK FOR THE INTERACTIVE EXPLORATION OF HIGHER-ORDER AND MULTIFIELD DATA},
booktitle={Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Computer Graphics Theory and Applications - Volume 1: GRAPP, (VISIGRAPP 2008)},
year={2008},
pages={199-206},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0001096501990206},
isbn={978-989-8111-20-3},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF
JO - Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Computer Graphics Theory and Applications - Volume 1: GRAPP, (VISIGRAPP 2008)
TI - A DIRECT VOLUME RENDERING FRAMEWORK FOR THE INTERACTIVE EXPLORATION OF HIGHER-ORDER AND MULTIFIELD DATA
SN - 978-989-8111-20-3
AU - Manke F.
AU - Wünsche B.
PY - 2008
SP - 199
EP - 206
DO - 10.5220/0001096501990206