Data shaders

The process of visualizing a scientific data set requires an extensive knowledge of the domain in which the data set is created. Because an in-depth knowledge of all scientific domains is not available to the creator of visualization software, a flexible and extensible visualization system is essential in providing a productive tool to the scientist. This paper presents a shading language, based on the RenderMan shading language, that extends the shading model used to render volume data sets. Data shaders, written in this shading language, give the users of a volume rendering system a means of specifying how a volume data set is to be rendered. This flexibility is useful both as a visualization tool in the scientific community and as a research tool in the visualization community