Patent Document ID: 8564617
Application ID: 12686222
Patent Status: 1

Claim One:
1. A method for performing accelerated volume rendering of a scene in a computer system, said method comprising: using a processor device, performing: 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; representing the three-dimensional array as a virtual volume box in a same ratio as the three-dimensional array; casting a set of sample rays through a screen pixel position of the scene from an eye view to intersect the virtual volume box, wherein the scene is represented as a two-dimensional array of screen pixel positions; determining entry and exit intersection points of each of the sample rays cast through the screen position and intersecting the virtual volume box, 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 the sample ray first intersected the virtual volume box and an ending sample time is a time at which said sample ray exits the virtual volume box; using the entry and exit intersection points, computing a set of three dimensional bounding boxes from sample intersection points along each ray, wherein said entry and exit intersection points form corners of the bounding boxes; wherein each bounding box represents a chunk of memory for placement into a second part of the system memory, wherein the second part is smaller than the first part; wherein each bounding box comprises all volumetric data needed to perform ray interpolation; converting the bounding boxes into memory locations; loading the volumetric data encompassed by each bounding box into the second part of the system memory; and for all sets of sample rays that are cast, repeating the determining, computing, converting, and loading steps for all sample times from beginning to end.