GPU-accelerated direct volume rendering of finite element data sets

Direct Volume Rendering of Finite Element models is challenging since the visualisation process is performed in world coordinates, whereas data fields are usually defined over the elements' material coordinate system. In this paper we present a framework for Direct Volume Rendering of Finite Element models. We present several novel implementations visualising Finite Element data directly without requiring resampling into world coordinates. We evaluate the methods using several biomedical Finite Element models. Our GPU implementation of ray-casting in material coordinates using depth peeling is several orders of magnitude faster than the corresponding CPU approach, and our new ray interpolation approach achieves near interactive frame rates for high-order finite element models at high resolutions.