A distributed memory algorithm for volume rendering

Three-dimensional arrays of digital data representing spatial volumes are generated from such diverse fields as the geosciences, space exploration and astrophysics, medical imaging, computational fluid dynamics, molecular modeling, microelectronic field modeling and computer simulation, With current advances in imaging devices and high performance computing, more and more applications will generate volumetric data in the near future. The paper presents a new distributed memory algorithm for volume rendering in a message-passing environment. The algorithm, which uses a slab technique for data partitioning, is a hybrid between the ray-casting and cell projection approaches for volumetric rendering. The results of some scaling experiments using ParaSoft Express on an Intel Paragon at the University of South Carolina are also presented