Strategies for More Energy Efficient Volume Analysis and Direct Volume Rendering Descriptor Computation

Abstract

A study of energy use (in an x86-class environment) for computation of descriptors used in analysis and in one common scientific visualisation strategy, direct volume rendering (DVR), of volumetric data is presented. Focus is on descriptors used by classic ray-casting-based DVR, including gradients and curvature. Modified computational strategies are considered versus standard approaches on x86. The modified strategies explored include two memory-based ones and four computation-based ones. Use of energy-optimal strategies was able to achieve close to 20% energy savings for gradient descriptor determination. Factor-of-two improvement in energy efficiency for curvature descriptor determination was achieved through these strategies.