Probe-volume: An exploratory volume visualization framework

Direct volume rendering has been an important technique for visualizing volume data. An unobstructed view on the inspected features of interest can help the user to get the insight of the volume data being explored. In this paper an exploratory volume visualization framework named Probe-Volume is presented. Probe-Volume provides a moveable and sizeable probing box for the user to examine an interested volumetric space of the data enclosed by the box. High-quality volume rendered results with such a feature can be achieved efficiently by providing two different user specified transfer functions for regions inside and outside of the probing box. In addition, our framework allows the user to visualize the volume with four rendering modes, namely, Full, MIP, MIDA, and Contour. Combining with the probing box, the user can select different rendering effects for regions included and excluded by the box in order to improve the visual effects. Experimental results show that Probe-Volume can provide informative direct volume rendered images of raw volume data efficiently and effectively.