Virtual Reality Lensing for Surface Approximation in Feature-driven Volume Visualization

Technologies: C#, Unity 3D, Cg/HLSL, VTK

Type: course project

Report link:  here

This work interrogated an image-centric technique to support the direct exploration of heterogeneous features in direct volume visualizations. More specifically, it examined an interactive lens technique that defines a support surface, whose shape conforms with a portion of the feature of interest; visual focus is then set on such support surface. Our assumption is that a faithful approximation of the feature can be constructed through the composition of multiple simple support surfaces. 
Furthermore, as both lens manipulation and volume data exploration  have inherent 3D nature, this work used virtual reality (VR)  technology and its spatial capabilities in order to enable an associative 3D interactive visual space; this may lead to more natural mappings with less physical and mental strain.

This work thus sought answers for questions like the following:

• Do quadrics provide good approximations of features of interest?
• What lens interaction technique(s) would allow users to create and edit a support surface?
• Which visualization technique(s) would provide visual focus on such surface?