An improved fast algorithm for ray casting volume rendering of medical images / 生物医学工程学杂志

ABSTRACT

Ray casting algorithm can obtain better quality images in volume rendering, however, it presents some problems such as powerful computing capacity and slow rendering velocity. Therefore, a new fast algorithm of ray casting volume rendering is proposed in this paper. This algorithm reduces matrix computation by the matrix transformation characteristics of re-sampling points in two coordinate system, so re-sampled computational process is accelerated. By extending the Bresenham algorithm to three dimension and utilizing boundary box technique, this algorithm avoids the sampling in empty voxel and greatly improves the efficiency of ray casting. The experiment results show that the improved acceleration algorithm can produce the required quality images, at the same time reduces the total operations remarkably, and speeds up the volume rendering.