Volume Illustration: Non-Photorealistic Rendering of Volume Models
Author(s): David Ebert, Penny Rheingans.
Proceedings: Proceedings of IEEE Visualization ’00, Salt Lake City, UT, October,
2000.
[BibTeX]
Abstract:
Accurately and automatically conveying the structure of a volume
model is a problem not fully solved by existing volume rendering
approaches. Physics-based volume rendering approaches create
images which may match the appearance of translucent materials
in nature, but may not embody important structural details.
Transfer function approaches allow flexible design of the volume
appearance, but generally require substantial hand tuning for each
new data set in order to be effective. We introduce the volume
illustration approach, combining the familiarity of a physicsbased
illumination model with the ability to enhance important
features using non-photorealistic rendering techniques. Since
features to be enhanced are defined on the basis of local volume
characteristics rather than volume sample value, the application
of volume illustration techniques requires less manual tuning than
the design of a good transfer function. Volume illustration
provides a flexible unified framework for enhancing structural
perception of volume models through the amplification of
features and the addition of illumination effects.