Visualization Based on Interactive Clipping: Application to Confocal Data

• Main Author: Khanduja, Gaurav
• Other Authors: Bijaya B. Karki
• Format: Others
• Language: en
• Published: LSU 2005
• Subjects: Computer Science
• Online Access: http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-04122005-125155/

We have explored how clipping can be exploited in an interactive manner to visualize massive three-dimensional datasets. In essence, the proposed interactive clipping approach involves the dynamic adjustment of the clipping plane to expose any cross-section of the volume data and subsequent adjustment of the clipped surface to the best view position using a combination of rotation and translation. The thesis describes the design, implementation and application of our interactive-clipping-based visualization system. The implementation is done with OpenGL and C++, thus resulting in a highly portable and flexible system. For illustration, two types of scientific datasets, confocal data of a plant stem and calculated electronic charge density distributions are successfully visualized. The data are displayed using pixel- and texture-based rendering; the latter is shown to give a better performance.