A perceptive evaluation of volume rendering techniques

Abstract

The display of space filling data is still a challenge for the community of visualization. Direct Volume Rendering (DVR) is one of the most important techniques developed to achieve direct perception of such volumetric data. It is based on semi-transparent representations, where the data are accumulated in a depth-dependent order. However, it produces images that may be difficult to understand, and thus several techniques have been proposed so as to improve its effectiveness, using for instance lighting models or simpler representations (e.g. Maximum Intensity Projection). In this paper we present two perceptual studies that question how DVR meets its goals, in either static or dynamic context. We show that a static representation is highly ambiguous, even in simple cases, but this can be counterbalanced by use of dynamic cues, i.e. motion parallax, provided that the rendering parameters are correctly tuned. Besides, perspective projections are demonstrated to provide relevant information to desambiguate depth perception in dynamic displays.

Quantitative evaluation of perceived depth of transparently-visualized medical 3D data presented with a multi-view 3D display

“…Motion parallax is another important cue to depth perception which refers to the relative movement of images across the retina resulting from movement of the observer or the translation of objects across his/her field of view. 1,2,[4][5][6][19][20][21] A few studies 15,22 reported the perceptual advantages of introducing motion parallax in the visualized transparent volumes. Advantages of simulated aerial perspective 14,15 (i.e., luminance contrast gradient in depth) and objects' edges 23 yielded by different visualization methods [24][25][26] have also been reported.…”

Quality measures of reconstruction filters for stereoscopic volume rendering

“…In the future, we plan to extend the study to include both novices and expert users of DVR to see how the preferences may differ between these groups. Since transfer functions can also have a significant effect on tasks requiring depth perception [1], a second possible extension of the research presented in this paper is to study the effect of the choice of transfer function on the quality measures of stereoscopic DVR.…”

“…These include the depth ordering evaluations of Refs. [1,3] where volume rendered cylinders were displayed and participants had to find their ordering, as well as the more common relative depth tasks requiring participants to find which highlighted feature is closest to themselves [16,17], and path-searching tasks [11,18]. These studies give values using the task's accuracy rates to compare the quality of one rendering method or display system over another but do not give any information as to how participants perceive any visual differences.…”

“…This can lead to conflicting depth information and can make it difficult for observers to understand the detailed layout of the objects in the scene. Several attempts have been made to aid in the understanding of depth in images produced by direct volume rendering (DVR), including the analysis of semitransparency [1,2] as well as the use of stereoscopic displays [3][4][5].…”

Interactive 3D Visualization of a Single-View X-Ray Image

“…Furthermore, depth perception has been an important field of research in computer graphics. Especially for DVR many methods for enhancing depth cues have been proposed [1,2,4,11,12]. For translucent volumes (such as X-Ray) an existing method uses stereoscopy [8].…”