Research issues in volume visualization

Volume visualization is a method of extracting meaningful information from volumetric data sets through the use of interactive graphics and imaging. It addresses the representation, manipulation, and rendering of volumetric data sets, providing mechanisms for peering into structures and understanding their complexity and dynamics. Typically, the data set is represented as a 3D regular grid of volume elements (voxels) and stored in a volume buffer (also called a cubic frame buffer), which is a large 3D array of voxels. However, data is often defined at scattered or irregular locations that require using alternative representations and rendering algorithms. There are eight major research issues in volume visualization: volume graphics, volume rendering, transform coding of volume data, scattered data, enriching volumes with knowledge, segmentation, real-time rendering and parallelism, and special purpose hardware