Patent Document ID: 20110169830
Application ID: 12686222
Patent Status: 0

Claim One:
1. A method for performing accelerated volume rendering of a scene in a computer system, said method comprising: using a processor device for: casting a set of sample rays through a screen pixel position from an eye view to intersect a three-dimensional array, wherein the scene is represented as a two-dimensional array of screen pixel positions; loading volumetric data comprising voxel data into a first part of a system memory, the volumetric data represented as a three-dimensional array of data values; determining intersection points of each of the set of sample rays cast through the screen position and intersecting the three-dimensional array, and wherein the intersection points are determined as a function of sample times from beginning to end of each sample ray, wherein a beginning sample time is a time at which one of the set of sample rays first intersected the three-dimensional array and an ending sample time is a time at which said sample ray exits the three-dimensional array; using the intersection points, computing a subset of the three-dimensional array for placement into a second part of the system memory, wherein the second part is smaller than the first part; loading the subset of the three-dimensional array into the second part of the system memory; and for all sets of sample rays, repeating the determining, computing, and loading steps for all sample times from beginning to end.