Field Visualization Of 3d Seismic Data Parallel Algorithm Research

Visualization of 3D seismic data field plays an important role in oil prospecting. It transforms physical data collected into graphics and images, and shows the features of the 3D seismic data, by assigning color and opacity to volume data, and changing the viewing angle. Direct volume rendering technology is one of the main methods for 3D visualization. It can show not only the external features of the 3D objects, but also the inner information. So, it is applied widely for visualization of 3D seismic data filed. But volume rendering has a shortcoming, which is that it is often too computationally intensive.The amount of the data in a 3D seismic field is usually huge in our practical production, so that the computer with the best performance can't have a real time effect when doing interactive visualization of 3D seismic data at present. So, it is necessary to research on parallel visualization technology of large-scale 3D seismic data.Our paper is based on ray casting algorithm of direct volume rendering. First, ray casting algorithm is analyzed and realized. Then, after analyzing the factors which affect the performance of parallel algorithm, a parallel ray casting algorithm is designed and realized on a computer cluster for testing with 3D seismic data. Finally, the algorithm is improved, in use of the characteristic of binomial tree, to reduce steps of the sub-images' synthesis. Compared with the serial algorithm, the rendering speed of parallel ray casting algorithm is increased greatly.