TY - GEN
T1 - Volume rendering by wavefront architecture
AU - Lin, S. H.
AU - Kung, S.
PY - 1993/1/1
Y1 - 1993/1/1
N2 - To achieve real time processing for volume rendering, it is necessary to employ parallel processing techniques. Therefore, a ray casting wavefront architecture is proposed. The architecture offers the following advantages. By a special memory organization, the processor array can perform fast rotation along x, y, z axes without incurring costly memory transformation. The projection phase and post-projection phase are assigned to different processors and a significant time-saving can be achieved by the pipelining technique. In the proposed architecture, the projection processors can skip the transparent region and step computation when further computation does not affect pixel values any more, e.g., the rays reach opaque surface. Finally, according to the VHDL simulation result, the speedup of the wavefront architecture over several SIMD designs (including CM2 and the Princeton Engine) is about 200% under normal condition.
AB - To achieve real time processing for volume rendering, it is necessary to employ parallel processing techniques. Therefore, a ray casting wavefront architecture is proposed. The architecture offers the following advantages. By a special memory organization, the processor array can perform fast rotation along x, y, z axes without incurring costly memory transformation. The projection phase and post-projection phase are assigned to different processors and a significant time-saving can be achieved by the pipelining technique. In the proposed architecture, the projection processors can skip the transparent region and step computation when further computation does not affect pixel values any more, e.g., the rays reach opaque surface. Finally, according to the VHDL simulation result, the speedup of the wavefront architecture over several SIMD designs (including CM2 and the Princeton Engine) is about 200% under normal condition.
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U2 - 10.1109/ASAP.1993.397146
DO - 10.1109/ASAP.1993.397146
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85064618711
T3 - Proceedings of the International Conference on Application-Specific Systems, Architectures and Processors
SP - 214
EP - 225
BT - Proceedings of International Conference on Application Specific Array Processors, ASAP 1993
A2 - Wah, Benjamin
A2 - Dadda, Luigi
PB - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
T2 - 1993 International Conference on Application Specific Array Processors, ASAP 1993
Y2 - 25 October 1993 through 27 October 1993
ER -