Visibility-Driven Depth Determination of Surface Patches in Direct Volume Rendering

Abstract

This paper presents an algorithm called surfseek for selecting surfaces on the most visible features in directvolume rendering (DVR). The algorithm is based on a previously published technique (WYSIWYP) for picking 3Dlocations in DVR. The new algorithm projects a surface patch on the DVR image, consisting of multiple rays. Foreach ray the algorithm uses WYSIWYP or a variant of it to find the candidates for the most visible locations alongthe ray. Using these candidates the algorithm constructs a graph and computes a minimum cut on this graph.The minimum cut represents a visible and typically rather smooth surface. In the last step the selected surface isdisplayed. We provide examples for results using artificially generated and real-world data sets.