Patent ID: 7755625

Claim:
A method for rendering volume data including an object space and an empty space acquired from ultrasound data in an ultrasound diagnostic system having a rendering unit, comprising: a) using the rendering unit to cast a virtual ray from at least one pixel in a viewing plane into the volume data; b) using the rendering unit to sample voxels of the volume data along the virtual ray at a first sampling interval; c) using the rendering unit to check whether a currently sampled voxel corresponds to the object space or the empty space by using opacity based on a voxel value of a sampled voxel; d) at step c), if it is determined that the currently sampled voxel corresponds to the object space, then using the rendering unit to return to the previously sampled voxel and sampling voxels along the virtual ray at a second sampling interval shorter than the first sampling interval; e) using the rendering unit to check whether an accumulated opacity calculated based on the sampled voxels along the virtual ray is greater than a critical value; f) at step e), if it is determined that the accumulated opacity is greater than the critical value, then using the rendering unit to complete the sampling process for the current virtual ray and calculating a rendering value by using the voxel values and the opacity of the sampled voxels; and g) using the rendering unit to repeat the steps a) to f) until the sampling process for the pixels comprising the viewing plane is completed.