Object-Space Visibility Ordering for Point-Based and Volume Rendering

Abstract

This paper presents a method to accelerate algorithms that need a correct and complete visibility ordering of their data for rendering. The technique works by pre-sorting primitives in object-space using three lists (one for each axis: X, Y and Z), and then combining the lists using graphics hardware by rendering each list to a texture and merging the textures in the end. We validate our algorithm by applying it to the splatting technique using several types of rendering, including point-based rendering and volume rendering. We also detail our hardware implementation for volume rendering using point sprites.