Efficient Raycasting of Volumetric Depth Images for Remote Visualization of Large Volumes at High Frame Rates

Research output: Contribution to journalConference articleContributedpeer-review

Contributors

Abstract

We present an efficient raycasting algorithm for rendering Volumetric Depth Images (VDIs), and we show how it can be used in a remote visualization setting with VDIs generated and streamed from a remote server. VDIs are compact view-dependent volume representations that enable interactive visualization of large volumes at high frame rates by decoupling viewpoint changes from expensive rendering calculations. However, current rendering approaches for VDIs struggle with achieving interactive frame rates at high image resolutions. Here, we exploit the properties of perspective projection to simplify intersections of rays with the view-dependent frustums in a VDI and leverage spatial smoothness in the volume data to minimize memory accesses. Benchmarks show that responsive frame rates can be achieved close to the viewpoint of generation for HD display resolutions, providing high-fidelity approximate renderings of Gigabyte-sized volumes. We also propose a method to subsample the VDI for preview rendering, maintaining high frame rates even for large viewpoint deviations. We provide our implementation as an extension of an established open-source visualization library.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)61-70
Number of pages10
JournalIEEE Pacific Visualization Symposium
Publication statusPublished - 2023
Peer-reviewedYes

Conference

Title16th IEEE Pacific Visualization Symposium
Abbreviated titlePacificVis 2023
Conference number16
Duration18 - 21 April 2023
Website
LocationSeoul Tourism Plaza
CitySeoul
CountryKorea, Republic of

External IDs

ORCID /0000-0003-4414-4340/work/159608269

Keywords

Keywords

  • concepts and paradigms Human-centered computing, Human-centered computing, Visualization, Visualization techniques, Visualization theory