Rendering of Surface and Volume Details in Volume Data*

Abstract

Aiming at the detail rendering in volume data, a new volume illumination model, called Composed Scattering Model (CSM), is presented. In order to enhance different details in volume data, scattering intensity is decomposed into volume scattering intensity and surface scattering intensity with different weight functions. According to the Gauss probability distribution of gray and gradient of data, we propose an accurate method to detect the materials in a voxel, called composed segmentation. In addition, we discuss the principle of constructing these weight functions based on the operators defined in composed segmentation. CSM can generate images containing more details than most popular volume rendering models. This model has been applied to the direct volume rendering of 3D data sets obtained by CT and MRI. The resultant images show not only rich details but also clear boundary surfaces. CSM is demonstrated as an accurate volume rendering model suited for detail enhancement in volume data sets.