Visualization of Time-Varying Volumetric Data using Differential Time-Histogram Table

Abstract

We introduce a novel data structure called Differential Time-Histogram Table (DTHT) for visualization of timevarying scalar data. This data structure only stores voxels that are changing between time-steps or during transfer function updates. It allows efficient updates of data necessary for rendering during a sequence of queries common during data exploration and visualization. The table is used to update the values held in memory so that efficient visualization is supported while guaranteeing that the scalar field visualized is within a given error tolerance of the scalar field sampled. Our data structure allows updates of time-steps in the order of tens of frames per second for volumes of sizes of 4.5GB, enabling real-time time-sliders.