Hardware-Accelerated Parallel Non-Photorealistic Volume Rendering

Non-photorealistic rendering can be used to illustrate subtle spatial relationships that might not be visible with more realistic rendering techniques. We present a parallel hardware-accelerated rendering technique, making extensive use of multi-texturing and paletted textures, for the interactive non-photorealistic visualization of scalar volume data. With this technique, we can render a 512x512x512 volume using non-photorealistic techniques that include tone-shading, silhouettes, gradient-based enhancement, and color depth cueing, as shown in the images on the color plate, at multiple frames second. The interactivity we achieve with our method allows for the exploration of a large visualization parameter space for the creation of effective illustrations. Keywords: interactive visualization, non-photorealistic rendering, scientific visualization, silhouette, texture graphics hardware, visual perception, volume rendering, parallel renderin