The vision camera: An interactive tool for volume data exploration and navigation

In this work we focus on one of the key problems of scientific visualization, the object recognition dilemma. The necessity to pre-interpret application data in order to classify object surface voxels prior to rendering has prevented many visualization methods from becoming practical. We propose the concept of vision by visualization which integrates computer vision methods into the visualization process. Based on this, we present the vision camera, a new tool allowing for interactive object recognition during volume data walkthroughs. This camera model is characterized by a flexible front-plane which, under the control of user-specified parameters and image features elastically matches to object surfaces, while shifted through a data volume. Thus, objects are interactively carved out and can be visualized by standard volume visualization methods. Implementation and application of the model are described. Our results suggest that by the integration of human and machine vision new perspectives for data exploration are opened up