Image-Based Rendering of Surfaces from Volume Data

We present an image-based rendering technique to accelerate surfaces rendering from volume data. We cache the fully volume rendered image (called keyview) and use it to generate novel view without ray-casting every pixel. This is achieved by first constructing an underlying surface model of the volume and then texture mapping the keyview onto the geometry. When the novel view moves slightly away from the keyview, most of the original visible regions in the keyview are still visible in the novel view. Therefore, we only need to cast rays for pixels in the newly visible regions, which usually occupy only a small portion of the whole image, resulting in a substantial speedup. We have applied our technique to a virtual colonoscopy system and have obtained an interactive navigation through a 512 3 size patient colon. Our experiments demonstrate an average of an order of magnitude speedup over that of traditional volume rendering, compromising very little on image quality.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2001
• Where: VG
• Authors: Baoquan Chen, Arie E. Kaufman, Qingyu Tang
• Keywords: Computer Graphics, Image-based Rendering Technique, VG 2001, Visible Regions, Volume Rendered Image