Rendering volumetric data using STICKS representation scheme
C. Montani, Roberto Scopigno · 1990
An increasing need to efficiently represent and render 3D volumetric data is being experienced in many application fields ranging from scientific and medical visualization to CAD. A technique of representing this kind of data, the Sticks representation scheme, is proposed here with the aim of allowing an efficient representation and rendering of voxel data on low-capability workstations. This data model is based on a 3D extension of the well-known run-length encoding methods. It requires O(kn2) memory cells to represent O(n3) volumetric data and produces a degree of data compression greater than that of the Octree model. Rendering a frontal orthographic projection of a Sticks-represented volume is a very simple task and requires only a partial scan of the data. A Ray Tracing algorithm is presented for the synthesis of gradient-shaded parallel projections; the proposed algorithm exploits the data compression to drastically reduce the complexity of rendering.