Patent ID: 7839404

Claim:
A method utilizing a processor for rendering an image using raycast visualization, the method comprising: a pre-processing procedure comprising: computing a sample sequence along each ray that passes through volumetric data; dividing each sample sequence of each ray into a plurality of partitions (m), each partition (in) having a number of sample points (d); compositing, for each ray, each sample point (d) of each partition (m) to produce an RBGA-tuple for each partition; storing the RBGA-tuple for each partition; a volume rendering procedure for each ray comprising: identifying a location of an intersection of a ray with a clipping plane; compositing the stored RBGA-tuple of each partition subsequent to the clipping plane; rendering the volumetric image using the composited RBGA-tuple of each partition subsequent to the clipping plane identifying a first position of a ray-clipping plane intersection of a first rendering frame; determining movement of the clipping plane; identifying a second position of the ray-clipping plane intersection in a next frame; identifying intermediate sample points located between the first position of the clipping plane and the second position of the clipping plane; compositing the intermediate sample points; and utilizing the composited intermediate sample points in the rendering step.