VolumePro Applications

It's not always evident how real-time 3D volume rendering differs from traditional texture-mapped computer graphics or how hardware-based volume rendering can dramatically improve visualization results. VolumePro technology has played an important role in volume visualization since its introduction in June '99. Regardless of industry segment or specific visualization application, there are several common elements that mandate a VolumePro rendering solution.

While some remarkable computer graphic effects can be achieved on relatively inexpensive PC systems, real-time volume rendering creates very demanding conditions that are beyond the technical capabilities of even high-end PCs. Acquisition / scanning devices that acquire discrete sample volume data include sophisticated medical scanners to security detection systems for explosives detection in luggage. Volume data acquired from discrete sample data (as opposed to 3D texture mapping) is necessary when it is critical to "see inside" an object or a volume in real-time.

To find evidence of a brain tumor, oil deposits, or potentially dangerous flaws in structural steel, the analyst must search rapidly through massive amounts of data seeking some visual anomaly. Paging through hundreds or even thousands of 2D 'slices' using very powerful and expensive super-computers was the accepted method of the last decade. Today, physicians and scientists deal with 3D imaging techniques by use of powerful editing tools on standard PC systems assisted by volume rendering acceleration hardware (namely VolumePro).

Today's 3D applications that acquire multi-gigabyte volume data require superior image quality, precise & accurate 3D reconstruction, mission-critical uptime, and interactive performance. In spite of the remarkable advances of CPUs, GPUs, and cluster computers, dealing with very large volume datasets with high performance remains daunting. The unique volume rendering hardware solution, designed from the chip up, provided by VolumePro eliminates the need for slow, complex software and its questionable texture mapping and ray tracing implementations.

VolumePro 1000 is instrumental in augmenting the effectiveness of the hardware platforms and application software used in the following applications:

Medical

Today's CT, MR, PET, and Ultrasound systems produce huge amounts of volumetric data for radiologists and clinicians to diagnose. Modern scanners are able to scan more patients per day, generate an ever-increasing slice count, physicians workload is increasing, and time has become the precious commodity that is always in short supply. Physicians seek easy to use systems that can deal effectively with large volume datasets, with excelling image quality and interactive real-time performance. Advances in imaged guided surgery, computer aided diagnostics and radiation treatment planning all rely on real-time rendered 3D volumes.

Geophysical

The days of sinking "wildcat" wells are long gone. It costs upwards of $50 million dollars to drill a well. Oil companies are looking for a 99.99% probability for success before committing to such an investment. Seismic interpretation is a fast evolving application moving from 2D to 3D. Enormous data sets in the Terabyte range have to be interpreted, analyzed and re-analyzed. Perhaps there is new oil trapped between existing wells? Geoscientists want to visualize and interact with at least several gigabytes of data using their desktop systems.

Industrial

Non-destructive testing (NDT) is the best way to safely evaluate the structural integrity of critical materials. Whether examining plastics for strength and flexibility via electron microscopy or insuring the integrity of cooling pipes for nuclear facilities via CT scans, the human eye must search for minute flaws and anomalies, sorting through massive amounts of volumetric data.

Scientific

Scientists studying astrophysics, fluid dynamics, molecular biology, forensics, weather modeling, etc. now use sophisticated 3D visualization techniques to gain new perspectives and test their theories. Both real and synthetic volume data must be analyzed. PCs and clusters of PCs are the systems of choice.

Cluster Computing

PCs have all the computer elements necessary for solving complex problems and doing visualization formerly reserved for the most expensive workstations. When they reach their individual resource limits, they can be clustered to achieve much higher levels of performance and visualization. The PC becomes a node. 4 to 32 node clusters are becoming quite common and clusters using hundreds of PCs are not uncommon. For all these varied applications, VolumePro technology is the ideal solution for achieving the performance and enhancing the image quality of the visualization task. The key processes required to render the 3D volumes into a 2D image are: casting the rays through the volume; assigning color and opacity values to the sample points, calculating gradients and assigning lighting to the image, and summing up all the color and opacity values to create the image.

Volume-rendering is fundamentally different from conventional 3D polygon-based graphics. The latter is primarily concerned with representing surfaces of objects by placing polygons on wire-frame models. This is satisfactory for games, animations and synthetic objects, but it cannot depict the interiors of natural objects or phenomena.

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