Interactive volume visualization of cellular structures
Qiqi Wang, Yinlong Sun, Bartek P. Rajwa, Joseph Paul Robinson · Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE · 2006
Modern optical imaging techniques such as confocal and multi-photon microscopy can acquire volumetric datasets of cellular structures. In this paper we propose an approach for interactive volume rendering of such cellular datasets. In the first stage, we create a set of 2D textures corresponding to the image stacks in the original dataset. These textures are generated through a transfer function that maps voxel intensities to colors and opacities, and stored in the texture memory in computer. In the second stage, by blending the textures with hardware support, we can achieve interactive volume rendering including rotation and zooming on regular PCs. Besides, to generate good images for viewing in lateral directions, we use two additional sets of 2D textures for two orthogonal lateral directions and the texture resolutions can be adapted to the rendering requirement and computer hardware. This approach offers an effective visualization environment for biologists to better understand and analyze measured cellular structures.