Volume Rendering Using Tiny Particles

In the present paper, we introduce a novel point-based volume rendering technique based on particle generation from user-specified transfer function. In the proposed technique, a set of tiny particles is generated from a given 3D scalar field. This particle generation process is based on a user-specified transfer function and rejection method. These particles are then projected onto the image plane to generate the final image. The main characteristic of the proposed technique is that the particle projection order is independent and unfixed because the transparency values of the particles are not taken into account. Therefore, only the depth-order comparison between the particles is required during the projection stage, which can greatly facilitate the distributed processing. When the quantity of projected particles is small, for instance, a maximum of one per pixel area, it becomes difficult to achieve semi-transparency, which is the main characteristic of volume rendering. To overcome this problem, sub-pixel processing is applied in order to allow the projection of multiple particles onto each of the pixel areas. The final pixel value is then obtained by averaging the contribution from each of these projected particles. The use of the Metropolis method for particle generation is also investigated as an alternative method for further improving the image quality