Composed Scattering Model for Direct Volume Rendering

Based on the equation of transfer in transport theory of optical physics,a new volume rendering model, called composed scattering model (CSM), is presented. In calculating the scattering term of the equation, it is decomposed into volume scattering intensity and surface scattering intensity, and they are composed with the boundary detection operator as the weight function. This proposed model differs from the most current volume rendering models in the aspect that in CSM segmentation and illumination intensity calculation are taken as two coherent parts while in ekisting models they are regarded as two separate ones. This model has been applied to the direct volume rendering of 3D data sets obtained by CT and MRI. The resultant images show not only rich details but also clear boundary surfaces. CSM is demonstrated to be an accurate volume rendering model suitable for CT and MRI data sets.