Physically based rendering of volumetric data is a key part in today's medicine, research and even several industrial sectors. Solutions, on the other hand, are often slow, uninteractive and based on specific hardware. Our work discusses two interactive volumetric rendering methods developed in a platform-agnostic environment, which are based on a two-step process and approximation of scattering with diffusion: a convection-diffusion method and a hybrid method using path tracing. Both methods solve the convection-diffusion equation, whereas in the hybrid method we use path tracing to compute the convection step. We implemented both methods in a web application using WebGL, with which our method runs in a platform-agnostic manner. By comparing the two methods we have shown that the hybrid method produces more accurate results and is faster when using a greater amount of lights.
|