Abstract
This paper proposes a new parallel ray-casting scheme for very large volume data on distributed-memory architectures. Our method, based on data compression, attempts to enhance the speedup of parallel rendering by quickly reconstructing data from local memory rather than expensively fetching them from remote memory spaces. Furthermore, it takes the advantages of both object-order and image-order traversal algorithms: It exploits object-space and image-space coherence, respectively, by traversing a min-max octree block-wise and using a runtime quadtree which is maintained dynamically against pixels’ opacity values. Our compression-based parallel volume rendering scheme minimizes communications between processing elements during rendering, hence is also very appropriate for more practical distributed systems, such as clusters of PCs and/or workstations, in which data communications between processors are regarded as quite costly. We report experimental results on a Cray T3E for the Visible Man dataset.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
M. Amin, A. Grama, and V. Singh. Fast volume rendering using an efficient, scalable parallel formulation of the shear-warp algorithm. In Proceedings of the 1995 Parellel Rendering Symposium, pages 7–14, Atlanta, October 1995.
D. Cohen and Z. Sheffer. Proximity clouds-an acceleration technique for 3D grid traversal. The Visual Computer, 11: 27–38, 1994.
I Ihm and S. Park. Wavelet-based 3D compression scheme for very large volume data. In Proceedings of Graphics Interface ‘98, pages 107–116, Vancouver, Canada, June 1998.
I. Ihm and S. Park. Wavelet-based 3D compression scheme for interactive visualization of very large volume data. Computer Graphics Forum,1999. To appear.
P. Lacroute. Real-time volume rendering on shared memory multiprocessors using the shear warp factorization. In Proceedings of the 1995 Parellel Rendering Symposium, pages 15–22, Atlanta, October 1995.
A. Law and R. Yagel. Multi-frame threshless ray casting with advancing ray-front. In Proceedings of Graphics Interface ‘96, pages 70–77, Tronto, Canada, May 1996.
R. Lee and I. Ihm On enhancing the speed of splatting using both object-and image-space coherence. Submitted for publication, 1998.
M. Levoy. Display of surface from volume data. IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, 8 (3): 29–37, 1988.
M. Levoy. Efficient ray tracing of volume data. ACM Transactions on Graphics, 9 (3): 245–261, July 1990.
P. Li, S. Whitman, R. Mendoza, and J. Tsiao. ParVox-a parallel splatting volume rendering system for distributed visualization. In Proceedings of the 1997 Symposium on Parallel Rendering, pages 7–14, Phoenix, U.S.A., October 1997.
U. Neumann. Communication costs for parallel volume-rendering algorithms. IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, 14 (4): 49–58, July 1994.
NLM. http: // www.nlm.nih.gov/research/visible/visible_human.html 1998.
S. Park, G. Koo, and I. Ihm. Wavelet-based 3D compression schemes for the Visible Human dataset and thier applications. In CD-ROM Proceedings of Visible Human Project Conference ‘98, Maryland, USA, October 1998.
S. Parker, P. Shirley, Y. Livnat, C. Hansen, and P. Sloan. Interactive ray tracing for isosurface rendering In Proceedings of IEEE Visualization ‘98. IEEE, 1998.
K. Subramaanian and D. Fussell. Applying space subdivision techniques to volume rendering. In Proceedings of Visualization ‘80, pages 150–159, 1990.
L. Westover. Footprint evaluation for volume rendering. Computer Graphics, 24 (4): 367–376, 1990.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1999 Springer-Verlag/Wien
About this paper
Cite this paper
Bajaj, C., Ihm, I., Koo, Gb., Park, S. (1999). Parallel Ray Casting of Visible Human on Distributed Memory Architectures. In: Gröller, E., Löffelmann, H., Ribarsky, W. (eds) Data Visualization ’99. Eurographics. Springer, Vienna. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-7091-6803-5_26
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-7091-6803-5_26
Publisher Name: Springer, Vienna
Print ISBN: 978-3-211-83344-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-7091-6803-5
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive