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An optimal parallel algorithm for volume ray casting

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Abstract

Volume rendering by ray casting is computationally expensive. For interactive volume visualization, rendering must be done in real time (30 frames/s). Since the typical size of a 3D dataset is 2563, parallel processing is imperative. In this paper, we present anO(logn) EREW algorithm for volume rendering. We useO(n 3) processors that can be optimized toO(log3 n) time withO(n 3/log3 n) processors. We have implemented our algorithm on a MasPar MP-1. The implementation results show that a frame of size 2563 is generated in 11 s by 4096 processors. This time can be further reduced by the use of large number of processors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, University of Central Florida, 32816, Orlando, FL, USA

    Vineet Goel & Amar Mukherjee

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  1. Vineet Goel
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  2. Amar Mukherjee
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Goel, V., Mukherjee, A. An optimal parallel algorithm for volume ray casting. The Visual Computer 12, 26–39 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01782217

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01782217

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