Intuitive volume rendering on mobile devices

Abstract

Nowadays, mobile devices, virtual reality and augment reality technologies are developing faster and faster. With a variety of equipments, people are no longer only using PC to handle tasks. Some traditional system frameworks are migrating to these new technology areas, and direct volume rendering is one of them. In this paper, we propose a real-time and intuitive volume data exploration framework on mobile devices. Our framework introduces a direct-touch transfer function design method that is able for the user to pick voxels directly on a volume rendered image. With one-pass shader, user interaction and volume rendering can be handled efficiently in real-time. The user only needs to learn a few related knowledge to explore a volume data and get its rendered image. As a result, the time cost of transfer function design for direct volume rendering is significantly reduced. Our framework is implemented with OpenGL ES 3.0 and GLSL shader. Experimental results show the advantages of our framework. Researchers, and even general users, can easily obtain volume rendered images of volume data.