Supercomputer assisted brain visualization with an extended ray tracer

The process of volume rendering is computationally intensive especially when high quality imaging is required. We present an approach to realistic volume rendering which is based on a distributed system with a workstation front-end for scene composition andprevisualization, and a supercomputer serving as the primary rendering engine. We report on a new, expedient method for extending arbitrary su$ace-based ray tracers to support realistic rendering of volumes. In aadition, we describe a method for supporting ray tracing of a volume manipulated by CSG operations. Finally, an eficient, forward projection algorithm which exploits the multiprocessor, vector-arithmetic capabilities of the CRAY Y-MP supercomputer is described.