Rendering Mixtures of Geometric and Volumetric Data

Abstract

Many scientific problems require sampled functions and analytically defined objects to appear together in a single visualization. Volume rendering is a relatively new technique for visualizing sampled scalar functions of three spatial dimensions by computing 2D projections of a colored semi-transparent gel. This paper addresses the problem of extending volume rendering to handle polygonal objects. Two solutions are presented. The first employs a hybrid ray tracer capable of handling both geometric and volumetric data. The second consists fo 3D scan-converting the geometric primitives into the volumetric dataset and rendering the resulting ensemble. Both solutions are designed to be efficient and to avoid aliasing artifacts. Their relative costs, image quality, and versatility are compared using examples from two application areas: medical imaging and molecular graphics. Techniques for adding shadows and texture are also presented.

Open PDF

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Dec 01, 1988
Accession Number
ADA208085

Entities

People

  • Marc Levoy

Organizations

  • University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Algorithms
  • Computer Graphics
  • Computer Science
  • Computers
  • Detectors
  • Diagnostic Imaging
  • Graphics
  • Health Services
  • Image Processing
  • Light Sources
  • North Carolina
  • Radiation
  • Radiation Oncology
  • Ray Tracing
  • Three Dimensional
  • Visualizations
  • X-Ray Computed Tomography

Readers

  • Approximation Theory.
  • Computer Vision.
  • Human-Computer Interaction (HCI).