@misc{KaehlerSimonHege, author = {K{\"a}hler, Ralf and Simon, Mark and Hege, Hans-Christian}, title = {Fast Volume Rendering of Sparse High-Resolution Datasets Using Adaptive Mesh Refinement Hierarchies}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-6516}, number = {01-25}, abstract = {In this paper we present an algorithm that accelerates 3D texture-based volume rendering of large and sparse data sets. A hierarchical data structure (known as AMR tree) consisting of nested uniform grids is employed in order to efficiently encode regions of interest. The hierarchies resulting from this kind of space partitioning yield a good balance between the amount of volume to render and the number of texture bricks -- a prerequisite for fast rendering. Comparing our approach to an octree based algorithm we show that our algorithm increases rendering performance significantly for sparse data. A further advantage is that less parameter tuning is necessary.}, language = {en} }