Incremental Volume Rendering Using Hierarchical Compression

dc.contributor.authorHaley, Michael B.en_US
dc.contributor.authorBlake, Edwin H.en_US
dc.date.accessioned2014-10-21T07:43:43Z
dc.date.available2014-10-21T07:43:43Z
dc.date.issued1996en_US
dc.description.abstractWe present a new algorithm here for efficient incremental rendering of volumetric datasets. The primary goal of this algorithm is to give average workstations the ability to efficiently render volume data received over relatively low bandwidth network links in such a way that rapid user feedback is maintained. Common limitations of workstation rendering of volume data include: large memory overheads, the requirement of expensive rendering hardware, and high speed processing ability. The rendering algorithm presented here overcomes these problems by making use of the efficient Shear-Warp Factorisation method which does not require specialised graphics hardware. However the original Shear-Warp algorithm suffers from a high memory overhead and does not provide for incremental rendering which is required should rapid user feedback be maintained. Our algorithm represents the volumetric data using a hierarchical data structure which provides for the incremental classification and rendering of volume data. This exploits the multiscale nature of the octree data structure. The algorithm reduces the memory footprint of the original Shear-Warp Factorisation algorithm by a factor of more than two, while maintaining good rendering performance. These factors make our octree algorithm more suitable for implementation on average desktop workstations for the purposes of interactive exploration of volume models over a network. Results from tests using typical volume datasets will be presented which demonstrate the ability of the algorithm to achieve high rendering rates for both incremental rendering and standard rendering while reducing the runtime memory requirements.en_US
dc.description.number3en_US
dc.description.seriesinformationComputer Graphics Forumen_US
dc.description.volume15en_US
dc.identifier.doi10.1111/1467-8659.1530045en_US
dc.identifier.issn1467-8659en_US
dc.identifier.pages45-55en_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8659.1530045en_US
dc.publisherBlackwell Science Ltd and the Eurographics Associationen_US
dc.titleIncremental Volume Rendering Using Hierarchical Compressionen_US
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