Representing surfaces with voxels

Abstract There are a large class of volume visualization applications in which only the surfaces are of interest. We have developed a system that provides an efficient, general framework for forming these surfaces and working with them. The system described here uses the point in 3D space (voxel), rather than a polygon, as the surface primitive. Voxels are an atomic level construct. They cannot be divided into anything smaller. The voxel is shown to be an appropriate surface primitive for a rich set of graphics operations, many of which have analogues in the polygon world. Surfaces are described by what we call a voxel display list (VDL). Substantial time and space savings are achieved by only storing the surface voxels and rendering from this surface description. The operations that can be performed on voxels surfaces include rotation, projection, shading, wireframes and interactive cutting. Many of these operations are quicker and simpler to perform on voxels than on polygons. The VDL is straightforward to create, render from and manipulate. It can run efficiently without using special hardware.