DocumentCode :
1860354
Title :
Hierarchical and parallelizable direct volume rendering for irregular and multiple grids
Author :
Wilhelms, Jane ; Van Gelder, Allen ; Tarantino, Paul ; Gibbs, Jonathan
Author_Institution :
California Univ., Santa Cruz, CA, USA
fYear :
1996
fDate :
Oct. 27 1996-Nov. 1 1996
Firstpage :
57
Lastpage :
63
Abstract :
A general volume rendering technique is described that efficiently produces images of excellent quality from data defined over irregular grids having a wide variety of formats. Rendering is done in software, eliminating the need for special graphics hardware, as well as any artifacts associated with graphics hardware. Images of volumes with about 1,000,000 cells can be produced in one to several minutes on a workstation with a 150-MHz processor. A significant advantage of this method for applications such as computational fluid dynamics is that it can process multiple intersecting grids. Such grids present problems for most current volume rendering techniques. Also, the wide range of cell sizes does not present difficulties, as it does for many techniques. A spatial hierarchical organization makes it possible to access data from a restricted region efficiently. The tree has greater depth in regions of greater detail, determined by the number of cells in the region. It also makes it possible to render useful "preview" images very quickly by displaying each region associated with a tree node as one cell. Previews show enough detail to navigate effectively in very large data sets. The algorithmic techniques include use of a k-d tree, with prefix-order partitioning of triangles, to reduce the number of primitives that must be processed for one rendering, coarse-grain parallelism for a shared-memory MIMD architecture, a new perspective transformation that achieves greater numerical accuracy, and a scanline algorithm with depth sorting and a new clipping technique.
Keywords :
parallel programming; algorithmic techniques; cell sizes; clipping technique; coarse-grain parallelism; computational fluid dynamics; curvilinear grids; data set navigation; depth sorting; hierarchical volume rendering; image quality; irregular grids; k-d tree; multiple intersecting grids; numerical accuracy; parallelizable direct volume rendering; perspective transformation; prefix-order triangle partitioning; preview images; primitives reduction; restricted region data access; scanline algorithm; shared-memory MIMD architecture; spatial hierarchical organization; tree depth; tree node; Application software; Computational fluid dynamics; Graphics; Hardware; Navigation; Parallel processing; Partitioning algorithms; Rendering (computer graphics); Sorting; Workstations;
fLanguage :
English
Publisher :
ieee
Conference_Titel :
Visualization '96. Proceedings.
Conference_Location :
San Francisco, CA, USA
Print_ISBN :
0-89791-864-9
Type :
conf
DOI :
10.1109/VISUAL.1996.567606
Filename :
567606
Link To Document :
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