A cell‐transverse display algorithm for regular and rectilinear 3D grid data
Akio Doi, Akio Koide · The Journal of Visualization and Computer Animation · 1992
Abstract This paper proposes an efficient direct imaging algorithm for constructing iso‐surfaces from regular and rectilinear 3D grid data in scientific and engineering visualization. The basic idea is to generate and draw polygons simultaneously by processing the cells spanned by grids in decreasing order of distance from the current viewpoint. Iso‐surfaces are generated in five or six tetrahedrons into which the cells are subdivided, and are sent to a graphics device or drawn into a frame buffer on the fly. The execution order of each of the tetrahedrons is identical and is determined by the current viewpoint. Since the algorithm does not need to store intermediate polyhedral data and does not require a depth buffer memory for hidden surface removal, it is applicable to a large quantity of data on a 3D grid, such as computed tomography (CT) data. It is also particularly powerful for semi‐transparent display, because transparency calculation can be reduced to image compositing operations if the polygons are drawn in order of their z‐depth from the current viewpoint.