Real-time Volume Rendering with VolumePro

Dr. Hugh Lauer
Adjunct Professor, Computer Science Dept., WPI

Friday, 10 February 2006
11:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
Fuller Labs 320

Real-time volume rendering is a technique for creating interactive images of objects and phenomena represented as sampled data in three or more dimensions. It is becoming increasingly important in medical imaging, oil and gas exploration, and scientific visualization. VolumeProT, the world's first commercial solution for interactive volume rendering on PC-class machines, comprises a chip, board, and supporting software. The VolumePro 1000 has come to be recognized as providing the best image quality in 3D medical imaging and is in use in the CT scanning systems of several major vendors of medical imaging equipment. This talk will address some of the underlying principles of real-time volume rendering, the architecture of the VolumePro 1000 chip, and the algorithm by which VolumePro creates its images. VolumePro uses a variant of a classic algorithm known as ray-casting. In this algorithm, imaginary rays are cast through a 3D array of data, and color an opacity are assigned to sample points along each ray. An illumination function is applied to each sample point, and then the resulting values are accumulated along each ray to form the pixels of the resulting image. VolumePro 1000 is capable of rendering at the rate of one billion sample points per second, enough to display a typical medical data set of 512x512x300 at interactive rates of about 15-30 frames per second. A gallery of images from clinical and test applications will be shown. An example image is attached, showing the lower spine of a living person.

Hugh C. Lauer was the founder of the Real-Time Visualization business unit at Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs (MERL) in Cambridge, Massachusetts. As Chief Technical Officer, he led the development of two generations of VolumePro chips, boards, and software. Following the sale of the business unit to TeraRecon, Inc., he became Senior Vice President of Processor Engineering. Prior to joining Mitsubishi Electric, he held positions at a number of companies including Xerox in Palo Alto, CA, and Apollo Computer in Chelmsford, MA. He earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science at Carnegie-Mellon University and was Lecturer in Operating Systems at University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. He is currently "semi-retired" and is a member of the adjunct faculty in Computer Science at WPI.

Host: Craig Wills

Refreshments will be served.