• Journal of the Korea Computer Graphics Society
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.40-49
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• 2005

Several optimization techniques have been proposed for volume ray casting, but these cannot achieve real-time frame rates. In addition, it is difficult to apply them to some applications that require perspective projection. Recently, hardware-based methods using 3D texture mapping are being used for real-time volume rendering. Although rendering speed approaches real time, the larger volumes require more swapping of volume bricks for the limited texture memory. Also, image quality deteriorates compared with that of conventional volume ray casting. In this paper, we propose a data structure for real-time volume ray casting named PERM (Precomputed dEnsity and gRadient Map). The PERM stores interpolated density and gradient vector for quantized cells. Since the information requiring time-consuming computations is stored in the PERM, our method can ensure interactive frame rates on a consumer PC platform. Our method normally produces high-quality images because it is based on conventional volume ray casting.

• 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.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.23-30
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• 2005

3D virtual endoscopy has been used as an alternative non-invasive procedure for visualization of hollow organs. However, due to computational complexity, this is a time-consuming procedure. In this paper, we propose a fast volume rendering algorithm based on perspective ray casting for virtual endoscopy. As a pre-processing step, the algorithm divides a volume into hierarchical blocks and classifies them into opaque or transparent blocks. Then, in the first step, we perform ray casting only for sub-sampled pixels on the image plane, and determine their pixel values and depth information. In the next step, by reducing the sub-sampling factor by half, we repeat ray casting for newly added pixels, and their pixel values and depth information are determined. Here, the previously obtained depth information is utilized to reduce the processing time. This step is recursively performed until a full-size rendering image is acquired. Experiments conducted on a PC show that the proposed algorithm can reduce the rendering time by 70- 80% for bronchus and colon endoscopy, compared with the brute-force ray casting scheme. Using the proposed algorithm, interactive volume rendering becomes more realizable in a PC environment without any specific hardware.

• 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 Society of Industrial Information Systems
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.23-31
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• 2004

This paper focuses on a boundary surface based ray casting. In general the boundary surface based ray casting is processed in two stages. The first stage finds boundary surfaces and stores them into buffers. The second stage calculates a distance from a viewpoint to the voxels of the interested area by projecting boundary surfaces on the view plane, and then starts to traverse a volume data space with the distance. Our approach differs from the general boundary surface based ray casting in processing the first stage of it. Contrast to the typical boundary surface based ray casting where all boundary surfaces of volume data are stored into buffers, they are projected on the planes aligned to the axis of volume data coordinates and these projected data are stored into 6 buffers. Such maneuver shortens time for ray casting, and reduces memory usage because it can be carried out independently from the amount of the volume data.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.19 no.9
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• pp.666-673
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• 2019

In the immersive virtual reality environment, we can select and manipulate various virtual objects. in order to select a virtual object, we generally use Ray-casting method that fires a virtual line in user's view and selects an object when the line and the object match, or Cone-casting method that is widely used to select multiple objects at the same time. However, since the virtual objects used in CAD are composed of small and complex objects in detail, when selecting an object in the user's view by existing methods, there occurs a ambiguity problem that needs additional realignment operation even though an object is selected as a group. in this paper, even if a virtual object is composed of several small virtual objects, it calculates the spatial and logical relationship among objects and expands or shrinks desired objects, so that the user can quickly and accurately select a desired object. in order to evaluate the proposed method, performance comparison were performed using Our and Ray-Casting and Cone-Casting methods. Experimental results show that the proposed method has the fastest speed and the highest accuracy when selecting the desired objects.

• 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 Korea Foundry Society
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• v.37 no.6
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• pp.173-180
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• 2017

In this paper, the casting design of the integrated twin-scroll turbine housing with exhaust manifold using stainless steel is investigated. Due to the complexity in its geometry and the poor castability of stainless steel, it is more crucial to set up the appropriate casting design to avoid casting defects. Gas porosity and shrinkage formation with the changes of gating systems (one-/two-side), riser conditions and pouring temperatures are examined via casting simulation and virtual castings. Simulation results show that two-side gating system produced better quality casting than that of one-side gating system, minimizing the gas content of the castings and it is also verified by X-ray analysis for the virtual castings. For the changes of riser conditions and pouring temperatures in the two-side gating system, it is found that the change of the height of two risers plays an important role in obtaining the best quality by reducing shrinkage defects.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.302-308
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• 2010

A gradient method can provide a global optimal path in indoor environments. However, the optimal path can be often generated in narrow areas despite a sufficient wide area which lead to safe navigation. This paper presents a novel approach to path planning for safe navigation of a mobile robot. The proposed algorithm extracts empty regions using a ray-casting method and then generates temporary waypoints in wider regions in order to reach the goal fast and safely. The experimental results show that the proposed method can generate paths in the wide regions in most cases and the robot can reach the goal safely at high speeds.

• Journal of KIISE:Computer Systems and Theory
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.210-216
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• 2009

Several empty-space leaping methods have been proposed for CPU-based volume ray casting. When sample points are located in semi-transparent cells, however, previous leaping methods perform unnecessary resamplings even if the scalar values on those points are confined within transparent range. A semi-transparent cells leaping method for volume ray casting using the Marching Cubes algorithm is proposed to solve this problem in our previous work. When a ray reaches a semi-transparent cell, our method performs in-out test between current sample point and the bounding box enclosing the triangles generated by the Marching Cubes. If the sample point lies on outside of the bounding box, we estimate the point is regarded as transparent. In this case, the ray advances to the next sample point without performing a resampling operation. We can frequently refer the tables for neighboring voxels, however, when we exploit conventional data structures of the Marching Cubes. We propose modified Marching Cubes tables for solving this problem.