• ETRI Journal
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• v.42 no.4
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• pp.608-618
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• 2020

We present a novel GPU-based ray-casting algorithm for volume rendering of unstructured grid data. Our volume rendering system uses a ray-casting method that guarantees accurate rendering results. We also employ the per-pixel intersection list concept in the Bunyk algorithm to guarantee an accurate result for non-convex meshes. For efficient memory access for the lists on the GPU, we represent the intersection lists for all faces as an array with our novel construction algorithm. With the intersection lists, we perform ray-casting on a GPU, and a GPU thread handles each ray. To increase ray-coherency in a thread block and improve memory access efficiency, we extend a prior image-tile-based work distribution method to fit modern GPU architectures. We also show that a prior approach using a per-thread local buffer to reduce redundant computation is not appropriate for modern GPU architectures. Instead, we take an on-demand calculation strategy that achieves better performance even though it allows duplicate computations. We applied our method to three unstructured grid datasets with different characteristics. With a GPU, our method achieved up to 36.5 times higher performance for the ray-casting process and 19.7 times higher performance for the whole volume rendering process compared with the Bunyk algorithm using a CPU core. Also, our approach showed up to 8.2 times higher performance than a GPU-based cell projection method while generating more accurate rendering results. These results demonstrate the efficiency and accuracy of our method.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.11-18
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• 2018

To interact with a virtual object in immersive virtual environment, the target object should be selected quickly and accurately. Conventional 3D ray casting method using a direction of user's hand or head allows the user to select an object quickly. However, accuracy problem occurs when selecting an object using conventional methods among occlusion of objects. In this paper, we propose a region of interest based selection method that enables to select an object among occlusion of objects using a combination of gaze tracking and hand gesture recognition. When a user looks at a group of occlusion of objects, the proposed method recognizes user's gaze input, and then region of interest is set by gaze input. If the user wants to select an object among them, the user gives an activation hand gesture. Then, the proposed system relocates and visualizes all objects on a virtual active window. The user can select an object by a selecting hand gesture. Our experiment verified that the user can select an object correctly and accurately.

• Journal of Korea Game Society
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• v.11 no.6
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• pp.71-80
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• 2011

Recent terrain rendering applications such as 3D games and virtual reality, use GPU-based ray-casting method for rendering high-quality scenes in realtime. As the size of terrain dataset grows bigger, the rendering speed will be decreased by the increase of the number of texture samplings. To accelerate the conventional ray-casting, we propose an efficient ray casting method with subdivided bounding boxes which are based-on GPU quadtree traversal. The subdivision of the terrain's bounding box can reduce the empty spaces effectively. By performing the ray-casting with this compact bounding box, we can efficiently reduce computation with empty space skipping. Unlike the recent quadtree-based empty space skipping techniques which perform the tree traversal at each ray, our method traverses the tree only once per frame. Therefore, we can save much computational time.

• Journal of KIISE
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• v.43 no.3
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• pp.304-313
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• 2016

We present a novel memory-efficient parallel ray casting algorithm for unstructured grid volume rendering on multi-core CPUs. Our method is based on the Bunyk ray casting algorithm. To solve the high memory overhead problem of the Bunyk algorithm, we allocate a fixed size local buffer for each thread and the local buffers contain information of recently visited faces. The stored information is used by other rays or replaced by other face's information. To improve the utilization of local buffers, we propose an image-plane based ray grouping algorithm that makes ray groups have high coherency. The ray groups are then distributed to computing threads and each thread processes the given groups independently. We also propose a novel hash function that uses the index of faces as keys for calculating the buffer index each face will use to store the information. To see the benefits of our method, we applied it to three unstructured grid datasets with different sizes and measured the performance. We found that our method requires just 6% of the memory space compared with the Bunyk algorithm for storing face information. Also it shows compatible performance with the Bunyk algorithm even though it uses less memory. In addition, our method achieves up to 22% higher performance for a large-scale unstructured grid dataset with less memory than Bunyk algorithm. These results show the robustness and efficiency of our method and it demonstrates that our method is suitable to volume rendering for a large-scale unstructured grid dataset.

• Journal of the Korea Computer Graphics Society
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.19-27
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• 2013

This paper presents a real-time GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) isosurface ray-caster that improves the performance by 4-7 folds from our previous method, while keeping the superior visual quality. Such an improvement is achieved by incorporating an efficient empty-space skipping scheme and an analytic normal computation. The empty-space skipping scheme is done by building an min/max octree computed from the BB(Bernslein-B$\acute{e}$zier)-form of spline pieces and the analytic normal Formula provides not only a nice visual quality but also an improved evaluation performance.

• Journal of Korea Game Society
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.53-62
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• 2012

Visualizing a volume dataset with ray-casting which of visualization methods provides high quality image. However it spends too much time for rendering because the size of volume data are huge. Recently, various researches have been proposed to accelerate GPU-based volume rendering to solve these problems. In this paper, we propose an efficient GPU-based empty space skipping to accelerate volume ray-casting using octree traversal. This method creates min-max octree and searches empty space using vertex splitting. It minimizes the bounding polyhedron by eliminating empty space found in the octree traveral step. The rendering results of our method are identical to those of previous GPU-based volume ray-casting, with the advantage of faster run-time because of using minimized bounding polyhedron.

• Proceedings of the Korean Information Science Society Conference
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• 2002.10d
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• pp.436-438
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• 2002

가상내시경에서 효과적인 진단과 사용자의 편의를 위해서는 자동순항(navigation) 기능이 필요하다. 자동순항을 위해서는 장기의 내벽과 충돌을 피하면서 부드럽게 카메라의 이동방향을 전환할 수 있어야 한다. 본 논문에서는 광선추적법(ray-casting)에 기반한 충돌회피기법과 그를 이용한 효율적인 순항 방법을 제안한다.

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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• v.14 no.10
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• pp.1229-1237
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• 2011

The volume ray-casting method is one of the direct volume rendering methods that produces high-quality images as well as manipulates semi-transparent object. Although the volume ray-casting method produces high-quality image by sampling in the region of interest, its rendering speed is slow since the color acquisition process is complicated for repetitive memory reference and accumulation of sample values. Recently, the GPU-based acceleration techniques are introduced. However, they require pre-processing or additional memory. In this paper, we propose efficient point-primitive based method to overcome complicated computation of GPU ray-casting. It presents semi-transparent objects, however it does not require preprocessing and additional memory. Our method is fast since it generates point-primitives from volume dataset during sampling process and it projects the primitives onto the image plane. Also, our method can easily cope with OTF change because we can add or delete point-primitive in real-time.

• Journal of the Korea Computer Graphics Society
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.1-7
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• 2011

Recently, various researches have been proposed to accelerate GPU-based volume ray-casting. However, those researches may cause several problems such as bottleneck of data transmission between CPU and GPU, requirement of additional video memory for hierarchical structure and increase of processing time whenever opacity transfer function changes. In this paper, we propose an efficient GPU-based empty space skipping technique to solve these problems. We store maximum density in a brick of volume dataset on a vertex element. Then we delete vertices regarded as transparent one by opacity transfer function in geometry shader. Remaining vertices are used to generate bounding boxes of non-transparent area that helps the ray to traverse efficiently. Although these vertices are independent on viewing condition they need to be reproduced when opacity transfer function changes. Our technique provides fast generation of opaque vertices for interactive processing since the generation stage of the opaque vertices is running in GPU pipeline. The rendering results of our algorithm are identical to the that of general GPU ray-casting, but the performance can be up to more than 10 times faster.

• Journal of KIISE:Computer Systems and Theory
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• v.29 no.8
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• pp.463-471
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• 2002

In order to implement virtual endoscopy, high-speed rendering algorithm that generates accurate perspective projection images and efficient collision detection method are essential. In this paper we propose an efficient virtual endoscopy system based on volume rendering technique. It is possible to skip over empty (transparent) space using the distance value produced in preprocessing time, and it does not deteriorate image quality since it is an extension of ray-casting. It also accelerates rendering speed with minimal loss of image quality by adjusting sampling interval along a ray according to direction of the ray. Using the distance information, we can simplify the collision detection of volumetric objects.