Volume rendering processing distribution in a graphics processing unit

• US 20080018642A1
• Filed: 09/20/2007
• Published: 01/24/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 05/17/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Stefan Brabec, Thilaka Sumanaweera
• Original Assignee: Stefan Brabec, Thilaka Sumanaweera
• Inventors: Sumanaweera, Thilaka, Brabec, Stefan
• Granted Patent: US 8,018,454 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/419
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 15/04 Texture mapping
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 15/08 Volume rendering
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 19/00 Manipulating 3D models or images for computer graphics
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2219/008 Cut plane or projection plane definition

Abstract

An intersection of a cut plane with a proxy geometry representing a scan volume is determined with a processor. The intersection is simplified, such as identifying a quadrilateral or triangle most closely enclosing the intersection. The vertex processor of a GPU deforms a reference grid and determines Cartesian coordinates and the texture coordinates for grid points of the reference grid as a function of the input intersection. The vertex processor provides coordinates for data for subsets of cut planes. The fragment processor inputs the texture coordinates and retrieves the data from the texture memory. The data is blended. The blended subsets are then blended together in the frame buffer of the GPU.

Claims

1-15. -15. (canceled)

16. A method for blending during volume rendering with a graphics processing unit, the method comprising:

compositing, with a fragment processor of the graphics processing unit, first and second data for first and second subsets, respectively, of cut planes; and

compositing the composited first and second data.

17. The method of claim 16 wherein compositing first and second data comprises compositing first data for the first subset of three or four cut planes and compositing second data for the second subset of three or four cut planes, the cut planes of the first subset different than any cut plane of the first subset.

18. The method of claim 16 wherein compositing with the fragment processor comprises compositing prior to storage in a frame buffer and wherein compositing the composited first and second data comprises compositing from the frame buffer.

19. The method of claim 16 wherein compositing comprises blending color values and alpha values.

20. The method of claim 16 further comprising:

receiving by the fragment processor texture coordinates for each of the cut planes, the texture coordinates for the cut planes of the first subset received substantially simultaneously, the texture coordinates for the cut planes of the second subset received substantially simultaneously and the texture coordinates for the cut planes of the first subset received prior to the texture coordinates for the cut planes of the second subset; and

obtaining the first and second data as a function of texture coordinates for each of the cut planes.

21. The method of claim 16 wherein, for generating a three dimensional representation, data is read from a frame buffer at least half a number of times as a number of cut planes for the three dimensional representation.

22. The method of claim 16 wherein said method is used for 3-dimensional cardiology or radiology.

23-27. -27. (canceled)