Volume rendering processing distribution in a graphics processing unit
First Claim
1. A method for blending during volume rendering with a graphics processing unit, the method comprising:
- determining a plurality of cut planes based on a viewing direction, the cut planes being generally parallel with each other and arranged along the viewing direction;
compositing, with a fragment processor of the graphics processing unit, first and second data for first and second subsets, respectively, of the cut planes, the compositing providing composited first and second data, each of the composited first data and the composited second data being a combination or selection of data for multiple cut planes of the respective first and second subsets, the combination or selecting reducing an amount of data, the composited first data representing pixel locations of a single image and the composited second data representing the same pixel locations of the single image but at different depths relative to the viewing direction; and
compositing the composited first data with the composited second data by combination or selection to form the single image representing the pixel locations for the viewing direction.
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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.
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Citations
13 Claims
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1. A method for blending during volume rendering with a graphics processing unit, the method comprising:
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determining a plurality of cut planes based on a viewing direction, the cut planes being generally parallel with each other and arranged along the viewing direction; compositing, with a fragment processor of the graphics processing unit, first and second data for first and second subsets, respectively, of the cut planes, the compositing providing composited first and second data, each of the composited first data and the composited second data being a combination or selection of data for multiple cut planes of the respective first and second subsets, the combination or selecting reducing an amount of data, the composited first data representing pixel locations of a single image and the composited second data representing the same pixel locations of the single image but at different depths relative to the viewing direction; and compositing the composited first data with the composited second data by combination or selection to form the single image representing the pixel locations for the viewing direction. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12)
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13. A method for blending during volume rendering with a graphics processing unit, the method comprising:
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receiving, by a fragment processor, texture coordinates for first and second sets of planes through a volume, the planes being stacked in depth along a viewing direction, the planes of the first and second sets corresponding to first and second data at different depths along the viewing direction; compositing the first data from the first set of planes in the volume, the composited first data representing pixel locations in an image based on the first set; compositing the second data from the second set of planes in the volume, the composited second data representing the pixel locations in the image based the first set, the composited second data representing different depths than the composited first data; and compositing the composited first data with the composited second data, the image having values for the pixel locations that are a function of the composited first data and the composited second data.
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Specification