Patent ID: 6559843
Filing Date: 2003-05-06
Classification: G06T

Abstract:
An apparatus for rendering a three-dimensional object onto a two-dimensional image plane of a viewing device, the three-dimensional object expressed as volumetric data, the volumetric data including a plurality of voxels, each one of the plurality of voxels having an intensity value representative of a portion of the three-dimensional object, the image plane having a plurality of pixels, comprising:an array of processor elements, each one of the processor elements of the array including a memory, each memory storing a subset of the plurality of voxels at fixed locations of the memory and a ray list, each of the subsets of voxels being a parallelepiped block of a portion of the plurality of voxels; means for selecting a viewing angle of the image plane with respect to the subsets of voxels stored at the fixed locations of the memories; means for projecting a plurality of rays from the image plane through the subsets of voxels stored at the fixed locations of the memories, the plurality of rays being projected orthogonal to the image plane with each of the plurality of projected rays having a corresponding entry in the ray list, there being one of the plurality of rays projected from each one of the plurality of pixels of the image plane, a portion of each one of the plurality of rays which is projected through one of the subsets of voxels being a ray segment; means for combining, for each ray segment, the intensity values of the voxels positioned approximately along each ray segment into a segment intensity value; and means for accumulating, for each of the plurality of rays, the segment intensity values of the ray segments into a pixel intensity value, the pixel intensity value associated with each of the plurality of rays being utilized to render the tree-dimensional object onto the image plane of the viewing device while the plurality of voxels remain stored at the fixed locations of the memories of the array of processors for any selected viewing angle.