Visualization of large scale scientific data has seen a plethora of parallel graphics and visualization methods. In particular, parallel rendering methods, both for polygonal and volumetric data, have been prevalent for generating interactive methods for enormous data sets. At the University of Utah, we have been investigating methods for interactive visualization of large scale scientific data. In this talk, I will present some of our research into these methods.
Conventional wisdom holds that ray tracing is too slow to be competitive with hardware z-buffers.
However, when rendering a surface from a sufficiently large data set, ray tracing can be competitive as its low time complexity overcomes its large time constant. I will describe our research into interactive methods for the large scale isosurfacing problem. Multimodal interfaces have been shown to increase user performance for a variety of tasks. We have been investigating the synergistic benefits of haptic scientific visualization using an integrated, semi-immersive virtual environment. All are invited to attend.