1 State of The Art for Volume Rendering

The interpretation of 3D scalar fields is considerably difficult because of their intrinsic complexity. In the context of this thesis the term volume rendering refers to the visualization of static 3D scalar fields especially the 3D imaging in medicine. A variety of different approaches have been developed in the past decades for volume rendering. This chapter tries to assess different volume rendering algorithms and draw an overall picture of significant concepts and ideas. It first examines existing volume rendering algorithms and compares advantages and disadvantages of each. Through investigating the current literature and systems, we conclude the current active research topics for volume rendering. Then different approaches are proposed for laying down the problems still existed for volume data information exploration.