Multiple Transparent Material-enriched Isosurfaces

Abstract

Isosurface extraction is a standard method for visualizing scalar volume data that can be used to render a specific material boundaries inherent in multi-material data sets. Multiple transparent isosurfaces can thus be used to visualize multiple material boundaries, but still fail to capture any data in between the boundary layers. We describe how isosurfaces can be “enriched” with surrounding material information. By visualizing surrounding material, both material boundary information and gradient - or change in density - information of the scalar field are represented. Visualizing multiple transparent material-enriched isosurfaces leads to a fairly effective volumetric impression. Thus, our approach approximates results obtained from direct volume rendering. The visualization of multiple transparent isosurfaces requires a back-to-front rendering of the typically triangulated surface components. The order of the surfaces’ triangles is imposed by the location of the convex cells they are extracted from, which supports fast rendering of multiple isosurface.