Abstract
Processing and visualizing large scale volumetric and geometric datasets is mission critical in an increasing number of applications in academic research as well as in commercial enterprise. Often the datasets are, or can be processed to become, sparse. In this paper, we present VoxLink, a novel approach to render sparse volume data in a memory-efficient manner enabling interactive rendering on common, offthe- shelf graphics hardware. Our approach utilizes current GPU architectures for voxelizing, storing, and visualizing such datasets. It is based on the idea of perpixel linked lists (ppLL), an A-buffer implementation for order-independent transparency rendering. The method supports voxelization and rendering of dense semi-transparent geometry, sparse volume data, and implicit surface representations with a unified data structure. The proposed data structure also enables efficient simulation of global lighting effects such as reflection, refraction, and shadow ray evaluation.
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Daniel Kauker received his Ph.D. degree (Dr. rer. nat.) from the University of Stuttgart in 2015. His research interests are distributed computation and visualization, generic rendering approaches, and GPU-based methods.
Martin Falk is a postdoctoral researcher in the Immersive Visualization Group at Linköping University. He received his Ph.D. degree (Dr. rer. nat.) from the University of Stuttgart in 2013. His research interests are volume rendering, visualizations in the context of systems biology, large spatio-temporal data, glyph-based rendering, and GPU-based simulations.
Guido Reina is a postdoctoral researcher at the Visualization Research Center of the University of Stuttgart (VISUS). He received his Ph.D. degree in computer science (Dr. rer. nat.) in 2008 from the University of Stuttgart, Germany. His research interests include large displays, particle-based rendering, and GPU-based methods in general.
Anders Ynnerman received his Ph.D. degree in physics from Gothenburg University in 1992. Since 1999 he has held a chair in scientific visualization at Linköping University and is the director of the Norrköping Visualization Center–C. He is a member of the Swedish Royal Academy of Engineering Sciences and a board member of the Foundation for Strategic Research. He currently chairs the Eurographics Association and is an associate editor of IEEE TVCG. His research interests include large-scale datasets in visualization and computer graphics, direct volume rendering including data reduction and volumetric lighting techniques, besides immersive visualization techniques.
Thomas Ertl is a full professor of computer science at the University of Stuttgart, Germany, and the head of the Visualization and Interactive Systems Institute (VIS) and the Visualization Research Center (VISUS). He received his M.S. degree in computer science from the University of Colorado at Boulder and Ph.D. degree in theoretical astrophysics from the University of Tübingen. His research interests include visualization, computer graphics, and human computer interaction. He has served on and chaired numerous committees and boards in the field.
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Kauker, D., Falk, M., Reina, G. et al. VoxLink—Combining sparse volumetric data and geometry for efficient rendering. Comp. Visual Media 2, 45–56 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41095-016-0034-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41095-016-0034-8