Accelerating Volume Visualization by Exploiting Temporal Coherence

In this paper we present two methods for accelerating surface visualizations of volume data, the image cache and the isomap. The image cache allows us to take advantage of temporal coherence during viewpoint changes. The image cache, which maintains intermediate values used to render the previous image, can be queried for visibility and shading information. While changing the isosurface threshold values, an isomap is generated for the current camera position. This new structure allows surface threshold variations to be rendered interactively. These methods perform well with large data sets because they reduce the rendering time dependence on data size.