| abstract |
A method and apparatus for generating image data representing an iso-valued surface. A series of points in three dimensional space each having positional data and an assigned scalar value is analyzed by dividing the space into tetrahedral elements, generating tetrahedral element representative normal vectors, generating vertex representative normal vectors data, and calculating pixel values for viewing rays passing through the tetrahedra. Tetrahedral elements have the advantage of requiring only the solution of linear equations instead of quadratic equations. The use of representative normal vector data rather than geometric data for each associated triangle greatly reduces the storage requirements for processing the data. The reduced data storage and associated reduced processing time allows generation of iso-valued surfaces at high speed with a minimum memory requirement. |