Volume and Isosurface Rendering with GPU-Accelerated Cell Projection*

Abstract

We present an efficient Graphics Processing Unit GPU-based implementation of the Projected Tetrahedra (PT) algorithm. By reducing most of the CPU-GPU data transfer, the algorithm achieves interactive frame rates (up to 2.0 M Tets/s) on current graphics hardware. Since no topology information is stored, it requires substantially less memory than recent interactive ray casting approaches. The method uses a two-pass GPU approach with two fragment shaders. This work includes extended volume inspection capabilities by supporting interactive transfer function editing and isosurface highlighting using a Phong illumination model.