Visualization of Very Large Oceanography Time-Varying Volume Datasets

This paper presents two visualization techniques suitable for huge oceanography time-varying volume datasets on high-performance graphics work- stations. We first propose an off-line parallel rendering algorithm that merges volume ray-casting and on-the-fly isocontouring. This hybrid technique is quite effective in producing fly-through movies of high resolution. We also describe an interactive rendering algorithm that exploits multi-piped graphics hardware. Through this technique, it is possible to achieve interactive-time frame rates for huge time-varying volume data streams. While both techniques have been origi- nally developed on an SGI visualization system, they can be also ported to com- modity PC cluster environments with great ease.