Chronovolumes: A Direct Rendering Technique for Visualizing Time-Varying Data

Abstract

We present a new method for displaying time varying volumetric data. The core of the algorithm is an integration through time producing a single view volume that captures the essence of multiple time steps in a sequence. The resulting view volume then can be viewed with traditional raycasting techniques. With different time integration functions, we can generate several kinds of resulting chronovolumes, which illustrate differing types of time varying features to the user. By utilizing graphics hardware and texture memory, the integration through time can be sped up, allowing the user interactive control over the temporal transfer function and exploration of the data.