Visualization of volume data with quadratic super splines

We develop a new approach to reconstruct non-discrete models from gridded volume samples. As a model, we use quadratic trivariate super splines on a uniform tetrahedral partition /spl Delta/. The approximating splines are determined in a natural and completely symmetric way by averaging local data samples, such that appropriate smoothness conditions are automatically satisfied. On each tetra-hedron of /spl Delta/ , the quasi-interpolating spline is a polynomial of total degree two which provides several advantages including efficient computation, evaluation and visualization of the model. We apply Bernstein-Bezier techniques well-known in CAGD to compute and evaluate the trivariate spline and its gradient. With this approach the volume data can be visualized efficiently e.g., with isosurface ray-casting. Along an arbitrary ray the splines are univariate, piecewise quadratics and thus the exact intersection for a prescribed isovalue can be easily determined in an analytic and exact way. Our results confirm the efficiency of the quasi-interpolating method and demonstrate high visual quality for rendered isosurfaces.