Volume distortion and morphing using disk fields

The rapid development of volume graphics offers ample scope to develop new methods and tools for computer graphics and visualisation. This paper is concerned with methods for specifying and controlling complex transformations of volumetric data. A volume distortion algorithm is presented, which allows one volume to be distorted into another under the control of two sets of disk fields. The algorithm also forms a primary module in a volume morphing process that is an extension of the feature-based image morphing technique developed by Beier and Neely [1]. For each inbetween volume, the algorithm is of time complexity O(n·m) depending on the size of the volume n and the number of disk fields m. Tests have shown that the algorithm is capable of performing complex volume transformations within an acceptable time using a small set of disk fields. The merits of the method in comparison with existing approaches for volume distortion and morphing are also discussed.