This Article 
   
 Share 
   
 Bibliographic References 
   
 Add to: 
 
Digg
Furl
Spurl
Blink
Simpy
Google
Del.icio.us
Y!MyWeb
 
 Search 
   
Per-Pixel Opacity Modulation for Feature Enhancement in Volume Rendering
July/August 2010 (vol. 16 no. 4)
pp. 560-570
ASCII Text
x 
 
Stéphane Marchesin, Jean-Michel Dischler, Catherine Mongenet, "Per-Pixel Opacity Modulation for Feature Enhancement in Volume Rendering," IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, vol. 16, no. 4, pp. 560-570, July/August, 2010.
 
 
BibTex
x
 
@article{ 10.1109/TVCG.2010.30,
author = {Stéphane Marchesin and Jean-Michel Dischler and Catherine Mongenet},
title = {Per-Pixel Opacity Modulation for Feature Enhancement in Volume Rendering},
journal ={IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics},
volume = {16},
number = {4},
issn = {1077-2626},
year = {2010},
pages = {560-570},
doi = {http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/TVCG.2010.30},
publisher = {IEEE Computer Society},
address = {Los Alamitos, CA, USA},
}
 
 
RefWorks Procite/RefMan/Endnote
x 
 
TY - JOUR
JO - IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics
TI - Per-Pixel Opacity Modulation for Feature Enhancement in Volume Rendering
IS - 4
SN - 1077-2626
SP560
EP570
EPD - 560-570
A1 - Stéphane Marchesin,
A1 - Jean-Michel Dischler,
A1 - Catherine Mongenet,
PY - 2010
KW - Volume rendering
KW - adaptive rendering
KW - nonphotorealistic rendering.
VL - 16
JA - IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics
ER -
 
Stéphane Marchesin, Université de Strasbourg, Illkirch
Jean-Michel Dischler, Université de Strasbourg, Illkirch
Catherine Mongenet, Université de Strasbourg, Illkirch
Classical direct volume rendering techniques accumulate color and opacity contributions using the standard volume rendering equation approximated by alpha blending. However, such standard rendering techniques, often also aiming at visual realism, are not always adequate for efficient data exploration, especially when large opaque areas are present in a data set, since such areas can occlude important features and make them invisible. On the other hand, the use of highly transparent transfer functions allows viewing all the features at once, but often makes these features barely visible. In order to enhance feature visibility, we present in this paper a straightforward rendering technique that consists of modifying the traditional volume rendering equation. Our approach does not require an opacity transfer function, and instead is based on a function quantifying the relative importance of each voxel in the final rendering called relevance function. This function is subsequently used to dynamically adjust the opacity of the contributions per pixel. We conduct experiments with a number of possible relevance functions in order to show the influence of this parameter. As will be shown by our comparative study, our rendering method is much more suitable than standard volume rendering for interactive data exploration at a low extra cost. Thereby, our method avoids feature visibility restrictions without relying on a transfer function and yet maintains a visual similarity with standard volume rendering.

[1] S. Bruckner, S. Grimm, A. Kanitsar, and M.E. Gröller, "Illustrative Context-Preserving Volume Rendering," Proc. EuroVis Symp., pp. 69-76, 2005.
[2] B. Csebfalvi, L. Mroz, H. Hauser, A. König, and M.E. Gröller, "Fast Visualization of Object Contours by Non-Photorealistic Volume Rendering," Proc. Eurographics Workshop, pp. 452-460, 2001.
[3] D. Ebert and P. Rheingans, "Volume Illustration: Non-Photorealistic Rendering of Volume Models," Proc. IEEE Visualization Conf., pp. 195-202, 2000.
[4] K. Engel, M. Kraus, and T. Ertl, "High-Quality Pre-Integrated Volume Rendering Using Hardware-Accelerated Pixel Shading," Proc. ACM SIGGRAPH/EUROGRAPHICS Workshop Graphics Hardware, pp. 9-16, 2001.
[5] A. Ghosh, M. Trentacoste, and W. Heidrich, "Volume Rendering for High Dynamic Range Displays," Proc. EG/IEEE Workshop Volume Graphics, A.E. Kaufman, K. Mueller, E. Gröller, D.W. Fellner, T. Möller, and S.N. Spencer, eds., pp. 91-98, 2005.
[6] R.C. Gonzalez and R.E. Woods, Digital Image Processing. Addison-Wesley, 1992.
[7] H. Hauser, L. Mroz, G.I. Bischi, and E. Gröller, "Two-Level Volume Rendering—Fusing MIP and DVR," Proc. IEEE Visualization Conf., pp. 242-252, 2000.
[8] G.L. Kindlmann and J.W. Durkin, "Semi-Automatic Generation of Transfer Functions for Direct Volume Rendering," Proc. IEEE Symp. Volume Visualization, pp. 79-86, 1998.
[9] M. Kraus, "Scale-Invariant Volume Rendering," Proc. IEEE Visualization Conf., pp. 295-302, 2005.
[10] E.B. Lum and K.-L. Ma, "Lighting Transfer Functions Using Gradient Aligned Sampling," Proc. IEEE Conf. Visualization (VIS '04), pp. 289-296, 2004.
[11] S. Marchesin, J.-M. Dischler, and C. Mongenet, "Feature Enhancement Using Locally Adaptive Volume Rendering," Proc. IEEE/EG Int'l Symp. Volume Graphics, Sept. 2007.
[12] B. Mora and D.S. Ebert, "Instant Volumetric Understanding with Order Independent Volume Rendering," Computer Graphics Forum, vol. 23, no. 3, pp. 489-498, 2004.
[13] B. Mora and D.S. Ebert, "Low-Complexity Maximum Intensity Projection," ACM Trans. Graphics, vol. 24, no. 4, pp. 1392-1416, 2005.
[14] L. Mroz, E. Gröller, and A. König, "Real-Time Maximum Intensity Projection," Proc. IEEE/Eurographics Symp. Data Visualization, pp. 135-144, 1999.
[15] T. Saito, "Real-Time Previewing for Volume Visualization," Proc. Symp. Volume Visualization (VVS '94), pp. 99-106, 1994.
[16] Y. Sato, N. Shiraga, and S. Nakajima, "Local Maximum Intensity Projection (LMIP): A New Rendering Method for Vascular Visualization," J. Computer Assisted Tomography, vol. 22, no. 6, pp. 912-917, Nov./Dec. 1998.
[17] P. $\tilde{\rm S}{\rm ereda}$, A.V. Bartroli, I.W.O. Serlie, and F.A. Gerritsen, "Visualization of Boundaries in Volumetric Data Sets Using LH Histograms," IEEE Trans. Visualization and Computer Graphics, vol. 12, no. 2, pp. 208-218, Mar./Apr. 2006.
[18] F.-Y. Tzeng, E.B. Lum, and K.-L. Ma, "A Novel Interface for Higher-Dimensional Classification of Volume Data," Proc. 14th IEEE Conf. Visualization (VIS '03), p. 66, 2003.
[19] I. Viola, A. Kanitsar, and M.E. Gröller, "Importance-Driven Volume Rendering," Proc. IEEE Visualization Conf., pp. 139-145, 2004.
[20] I. Viola, A. Kanitsar, and M.E. Gröller, "Importance-Driven Feature Enhancement in Volume Visualization," IEEE Trans. Visualization and Computer Graphics, vol. 11, no. 4, pp. 408-418, July/Aug. 2005.
[21] X. Yuan, M.X. Nguyen, B. Chen, and D.H. Porter, "High Dynamic Range Volume Visualization," Proc. IEEE Conf. Visualization 2005, pp. 327-334, 2005.

Index Terms:
Volume rendering, adaptive rendering, nonphotorealistic rendering.
Citation:
Stéphane Marchesin, Jean-Michel Dischler, Catherine Mongenet, "Per-Pixel Opacity Modulation for Feature Enhancement in Volume Rendering," IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, vol. 16, no. 4, pp. 560-570, July-Aug. 2010, doi:10.1109/TVCG.2010.30
Usage of this product signifies your acceptance of the Terms of Use.