IEEE VIS 2024 Content: Accelerating Transfer Function Update for Distance Map based Volume Rendering

Accelerating Transfer Function Update for Distance Map based Volume Rendering

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Michael Rauter - University of Applied Sciences Wiener Neustadt, Wiener Neustadt, Austria

 Lukas Zimmermann - Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria

 Markus Zeilinger - University of Applied Sciences Wiener Neustadt, Wiener Neustadt, Austria

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2024-10-16T16:00:00ZGMT-0600Change your timezone on the schedule page
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Exemplar figure, described by caption below — Direct volume renderings of the manix dataset applying distinct transfer functions. Distance map based empty space skipping can be used to accelerate rendering. Different transfer functions result in different distance maps as indicated in the image. Therefore, it is required to recompute the distance map on a transfer function update. In the paper, we demonstrate how to compute the distance map faster than before by computing what we call partitioned distance maps as a preprocessing step, and combining them into the final distance map at runtime.

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Keywords

Computing methodologies—Computer graphics—Rendering, Theory of computation—Design and analysis of algorithms—Data structures design and analysis.

Abstract

Direct volume rendering using ray-casting is widely used in practice. By using GPUs and applying acceleration techniques as empty space skipping, high frame rates are possible on modern hardware.This enables performance-critical use-cases such as virtual reality volume rendering. The currently fastest known technique uses volumetric distance maps to skip empty sections of the volume during ray-casting but requires the distance map to be updated per transfer function change. In this paper, we demonstrate a technique for subdividing the volume intensity range into partitions and deriving what we call partitioned distance maps. These can be used to accelerate the distance map computation for a newly changed transfer function by a factor up to 30. This allows the currently fastest known empty space skipping approach to be used while maintaining high frame rates even when the transfer function is changed frequently.