Volume rendering

Volume rendering is a technique for directly displaying a sampled 3D scalar field without first fitting geometric primitives to the samples. We are working on developing efficient and accurate algorithms for displaying this sort of data. Our goal is photorealistic real-time volume rendering of usefully large scientific, engineering, and medical datasets on affordable noncustom hardware. We are also working on techniques for visualizing vector fields, for segmenting and displaying medical volumes, and for morphing volumes.

People working on this project:

• Phil Lacroute < lacroute@weevil.stanford.edu >
• Marc Levoy < levoy@cs.stanford.edu >
• Apostolos Lerios < tolis@cs.stanford.edu >
• Chase Garfinkle < cgar@cs.stanford.edu >

On leave:

• Lisa Forssell < lisaf@cs.stanford.edu >

Recent papers in this area:

Real-Time Volume Rendering on Shared Memory Multiprocessors Using the Shear-Warp Factorization

Philippe Lacroute

Proc. 1995 Parallel Rendering Symposium

Feature-Based Volume Metamorphosis

Apostolos Lerios, Chase D. Garfinkle, and Marc Levoy

Proc. SIGGRAPH '95

Fast Volume Rendering Using a Shear-Warp Factorization of the Viewing Transformation

Philippe Lacroute and Marc Levoy

Proc. SIGGRAPH '94

Frequency Domain Volume Rendering

Takashi Totsuka and Marc Levoy

Proc. SIGGRAPH '93

Available software:

• The VolPack Volume Rendering Library.

Demos:

• Sample volume renderings made using the VolPack Volume Rendering Library.
• Several 3D volume morphs.
• Miscellaneous (mostly old) volume renderings made by Marc Levoy.

A list of technical papers, with abstracts and pointers to additional information, is also available. Or you can return to the research projects page or our home page.