Khanduja,G., Karki,B.B.
Abstract:
We have exploited clipping in combination with dual-resolution volume rendering to visualize large-scale three-dimensional (3D) scientific datasets in an efficient-effective manner. In essence, our interactive clipping approach involves the dynamic manupulation of a clip plane to expose any cross-section of a given volume data and the subsequent adjustment of the clipped surface (i.e., the exposed surface) to the best view position by using a combination of translations and rotations in a 3D space. The datasets are rendered as stacks of 2D textures at high-resolution (i.e., using the original resolution of the input data/image) and low-resolution (sampling at reduced-resolution). While all clipping related operations and transformations take place in the low-resolution (LR) mode to achieve an interactive frame rate, the best-view position supports the high-resolution (HR) mode. Our approach thus enables a real-time exploration of any interior region of 3D volumetric data at a desired resolution. Its successful demonstration is done by visualizing two sets of 3D scientific data, which are the confocal microscopy images of tissues in a plant stem and simulated electronic charge density distributions in a crystal.