Volren

A Hardware Accelerated Volume Renderer

(Version 6.0)

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What's New?


Volren has changed significantly since version 5.0. Most notably it now supports all three Silicon Graphics platforms that have hardware accelerated texture mapping. Additionally, many buggy or semi-coded features of version 5.0 have been removed.


Version 6.0 features:


First Class Open GL support

Volren now first supports OpenGL. The IrisGL code remains in volren, but it has not been extensively tested. Future versions of volren will probably only support OpenGL. OpenGL should compile and run cleanly on any Irix 6.2 platform (even those without texture mapping hardware, though it will be slow). Additionally volren should work properly on Indigo2 Impacts running Irix 5.3 as well as Onyx Reality Engines with the latest OpenGL patch installed (patch 918).


Extended Lookup Table support

Volren nows supports a more sophisticated and powerful color and opacity lookup mechanism. It can read the tablemap files supported by version 5.0 as well as color only (colormap) and opacity only (alphamap) files. The colormap and alphamap are possibly altered by the currently selected transfer function. The result is the lookup table used to map the volume when it is rendered. Many transfer functions are now supported, including "window/level", "triangle", "inverse triangle", "double triangle", and "medical". Additionally the code easily supports the addition of extra transfer functions.


Reorganized Interface

The interface has been reorganized and restructured to provide a flatter and less intimidating look. Additionally, functions are now grouped into menus logically for easier access. Menu entries also show hot keys to facilitate quick learning of key short cuts.


Version 5.0 features:


Multiple Volume support

Volren now supports loading multiple volumes concurrently. The volumes can intersect each other arbitrarily and will be correctly merged and rendered. Each volume can be translated and rotated individually. Additionally, each volume can use its own texture lookup table allowing an enormous range of flexibility in merged rendering.


Time Variant Volume support

Volren can now load four dimensional volumes that change over time. The animation rate is controllable from the command line and the user interface. These time variant volumes can be loaded with normal volumes or other time variant volumes or both.


Geometry Code improved

The geometric matrix code is entirely rewritten and much cleaner. The source is much more readable and a description of the different important coordinate spaces exists in src/README.CODERS.


Stereo Viewing support

Volren version 5.0 supports stereo. The stereo code is reworked and looks better than ever.


Numerous Other fixes

Option to disable generation of four-bit bricks. Slice plane extents now computed correctly. Picking works right in perspective and orthogonal modes. Pixel replication mode works correctly again. Brick seaming code reworked; minor bugs fixed. Supports two resampling filters (box and triangle). Updated man page and data sets!


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Todd Kulick -- kulick@sgi.com