Representation And Visualization Of Volume Data

This thesis focuses on the representation and visualization of volume data. The principal datasets used in experimentation were geometrically defined solids, as well as three dimensional arrays of density values obtained from Computed Tomography. Solid structures were, in general, encoded and stored as linear octrees.;An original interpolation method was designed based on the Fourier representation of a three-dimensional array. This method was compared to the most commonly used techniques of linear and tri-linear interpolation. Evaluation of the interpolator was performed by increasing the resolution of three-dimensional arrays of densities that were obtained from Computed Tomography. Bone and soft tissues were isolated by the standard method of thresholding. A new ray-tracing algorithm was designed and used to visually evaluate solids.;Projections demonstrated that the Fourier interpolator produced superior solid structures to those formed by the linear approach. Also, the performance of the ray-tracer was compared to an alternate ray-tracer and in all test cases runtimes were significantly reduced