Simulation of complex 3-dimensional phenomena generate data sets which are hard to comprehend using conventional 2-dimensionally oriented visualization tools. One way to overcome this limitation is to employ various volume visualization techniques. While early volume visualization techniques worked well on simple scalar volumes they failed to exploit frame buffer hardware capabilities and handle higher order data such as vector fields. Work at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has centered on developing new techniques and extending existing techniques. This paper describes the various algorithms developed for volume rendering, and presents new methods of examining vector fields in a volumetric fashion.
Roger Crawfis, Nelson L. Max, Barry G. Becker, Bri