Slicing Based Fast Volume Rendering for Finite Element Meshes

In accordance with the characteristics of irregular data field of 3D finite element model, a modified algorithm of direct volume rendering based on Incremental Slicing is proposed. The algorithm can deal with multiple types of finite elements. The hardware accelerated RGBA polygon rendering is used for hybrid rendering of both the volume data and geometric surfaces, and compensated treatment is introduced for important small elements. Both the efficiency and image quality of finite element model rendering have been improved noticeably.