Towards Real Time Volume Rendering

The task of real time rendering of today’s volumetric datasets is still being tackled by several research groups. A quick calculation of the amount of computation required for real-time rendering of a high resolution volume puts us in the teraflop range. Yet, the demand to support such rendering capabilities is increasing due to emerging technologies such as virtual surgery simulation and rapid prototyping. There are five main approaches to overcoming this seemingly insurmountable performance barrier: (i) data reduction by means of model extraction or data simplification, (ii) realization of special-purpose volume rendering engines, (iii) software-based algorithm optimization and acceleration, (iv) implementation on general purpose parallel architectures, and (v) use of contemporary of-the-shelf graphics hardware. In this presentation we first describe the vision of real-time high-resolution volume rendering and estimate the computing power it demands. We survey the state-of-the art in rapid volume rendering and compare the achievements and effectivity of the various approaches. We look ahead and describe the remaining challenges and some possible ways of providing the needs of this ever demanding field.