This report summarizes my research on the visualization of scalar fields and the rendering of participating media. A strong focus of my work is on the development of optical models for exploring and visualizing volumetric data sets interactively. In particular, my research is concentrated on goal-oriented optical models that offer simple control over the visual properties of a visualization com...

Rapid advances in hardware have been transforming revolutionary approaches in computer graphics into reality. One typical example is the raster graphics that took place in the seventies, when hardware innovations enabled the transition from vector graphics to raster graphics. Another example which has a similar potential is currently shaping up in the field of volume graphics. This trend is roo...

In this paper we describe methods to efficiently visualize multiple intersecting volumetric objects. We introduce the concept of V-Objects. V-Objects represent abstract properties of an object connected to a volumetric data source. We present a method to perform direct volume rendering of a scene comprised of an arbitrary number of possibly intersecting V-Objects. The idea of our approach is to...