DocumentCode :
1102580
Title :
Image-space visibility ordering for cell projection volume rendering of unstructured data
Author :
Cook, Richard ; Max, Nelson ; Silva, Cláudio T. ; Williams, Peter L.
Author_Institution :
Lawrence Livermore Nat. Lab., CA, USA
Volume :
10
Issue :
6
fYear :
2004
Firstpage :
695
Lastpage :
707
Abstract :
Projection methods for volume rendering unstructured data work by projecting, in visibility order, the polyhedral cells of the mesh onto the image plane, and incrementally compositing each cell´s color and opacity into the final image. Normally, such methods require an algorithm to determine a visibility order of the cells. The meshed polyhedra visibility order (MPVO) algorithm can provide such an order for convex meshes by considering the implications of local ordering relations between cells sharing a common face. However, in nonconvex meshes, one must also consider ordering relations along viewing rays which cross empty space between cells. In order to include these relations, the algorithm described in this paper, the scanning exact meshed polyhedra visibility ordering (SXMPVO) algorithm, scan-converts the exterior faces of the mesh and saves the ray-face intersections in an A-buffer data structure which is then used for retrieving the extra ordering relations. The image which SXMPVO produces is the same as would be produced by ordering the cells exactly, even though SXMPVO does not compute an exact visibility ordering. This is because the image resolution used for computing the visibility ordering relations is the same as that which is used for the actual volume rendering and we choose our A-buffer rays at the same sample points that are used to establish a polygon´s pixel coverage during hardware scan conversion. Thus, the algorithm is image-space correct. The SXMPVO algorithm has several desirable features; among them are speed, simplicity of implementation, and no extra (i.e., with respect to MPVO) preprocessing.
Keywords :
data structures; data visualisation; image colour analysis; image resolution; mesh generation; rendering (computer graphics); A-buffer data structure; cell projection volume rendering; convex meshes; hardware scan conversion; image plane; image resolution; image-space visibility ordering; meshed polyhedra visibility order algorithm; polygon pixel coverage; ray-face intersection; unstructured data; Data structures; Finite element methods; Hardware; Image resolution; Image segmentation; Information retrieval; Mesh generation; Pixel; Rendering (computer graphics); Sorting; 65; Index Terms- Volume rendering; unstructured mesh.; visibility ordering;
fLanguage :
English
Journal_Title :
Visualization and Computer Graphics, IEEE Transactions on
Publisher :
ieee
ISSN :
1077-2626
Type :
jour
DOI :
10.1109/TVCG.2004.45
Filename :
1333667
Link To Document :
بازگشت