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Volume rendering of medical image data via hardware and in software

At the 1999 meeting of SPIE Medical Imaging, we presented results that demonstrated that a software-only-based technique, Shell Rendering, was capable of rendering hard surfaces at rates faster than hardware-assisted, triangle- based surface rendering by a factor of 18 to 31 while maintaining comparable image quality. We noted that the framework of Shell Rendering actually encompasses both hard surface rendering of medical image data via Shell Rendering in software with two techniques of OpenGL-based hardware- assisted volume rendering using 2D and 3D texture mapping. Although our previous results demonstrated that shell rendering is faster than hardware-assisted surface rendering, its speed is comparable to but slightly lower than hardware-assisted volume rendering methods. Detailed timing results for various input medical image data sets as well as for various computer platforms are presented in the paper. The images produced by the various methods are presented as well for subjective quality assessment. We conclude that for medical image visualization, Shell Rendering is an efficient technique that combines aspects of surface rendering and volume rendering. Furthermore, it accomplishes this without requiring expensive hardware while producing high quality images on PCs using an entirely software-based approach.