Volume synthesis [chapter]

Arie E. Kaufman
1996 Lecture Notes in Computer Science  
This paper is a survey of volume synthesis techniques which are part of the field of volume graphics. It focuses specifically on the use of voxel representation and volumetric techniques for traditiona! geometric applications of computer graphics. Introduction Volume data are 3D entities that may have information inside them, might not consist of surfaces, or might be too voluminous to be represented geometrically. Volume visualization is a method of extracting meaningful information from
more » ... tric data using interactive graphics and imaging. It is concerned with voktme data representation, modeling, manipulation, and rendering [16] . Volume data are obtained by sampling (e.g., CT, MRI, ultrasound, confocal microscope), simulation (e.g., running on a supercomputer), or modeling. Recently, volume modeling (volume synthesis) has been flourishing, where many traditional geometric graphics applications, such as CAD and flight simulation, have been exploiting the advantages of volume techniques for modeling, manipulation, and visualization. This approach is called volume graphics. Over the years many techniques have been developed to visualize 3D data. Since methods for displaying geometric primitives were already well-established, most of the early methods involve approximating a surface contained within the data using geometric primitives. When volumetric data are visualized using surface rendering, a dimension of information is essentially lost. In response to this, volume rendering techniques were developed that attempt to capture the entire 3D data in a single 2D image. Volume rendering conveys more information than surface rendering, but at the cost of increased algorithm complexity, and consequently increased rendering times. To improve interactivity in volume rendering, many optimization methods as well as several special-purpose volume rendering machines have been developed. Sec. 2 introduces volume data and volume rendering. Volume graphics is presented in Sec. 3, followed by voxelization (Sec. 4), fundamentals of discrete topology (Sec. 5), point and volume sampling (Secs. 6, 7), texture mapping (Sec. 8), amorphous phenomena (Sec. 9), block operations and constructive solid modeling (Sec. 10), and volume sculpting (Sec. 11). Then, volume graphics is contrasted with surface graphics (Sec. 12), and the features and weaknesses of volume graphics are discussed (Secs. 14, 15).
doi:10.1007/3-540-62005-2_8 fatcat:waeet4fumvbpfnfz2k6kzfjfqi