| Scientific visualization and medical imaging make use of massive three dimensional data sets. Volume rendering is a method of displaying these data sets, which permits a user to manipulate and study the data. To be at all useful, the volume must be rendered at “interactive” rates of at least thirty frames per second.; This thesis presents an accelerated volume rendering algorithm that exploits empty regions in the data set to minimize processing time. The algorithm uses “off-the-shelf” commodity graphics hardware and achieves high levels of interactivity—both in data manipulation and data reclassification, a common but usually ignored aspect of volume rendering. The new algorithm was tested with a wide variety of data sets and substantial increases in frame rate were observed. |
