VolVis Project - Features

Features

Diversity:

VolVis supplies a wide range of functionality with numerous methods provided within each functional component. For example, VolVis provides various projection methods including ray casting, ray tracing, radiosity, Marching Cubes, and splatting.

Ease of use:

The VolVis user interface is organized into functional components, providing an easy to use visualization system. One advantage of this approach over data-flow systems is that the user does not have to learn how to link numerous modules in order to perform a task.

Extensibility:

The structure of the VolVis system is designed to allow a visualization programmer to easily add new representations and algorithms. For this purpose, an extensible and hierarchical abstract model was developed [Avila et al. 1992] which contains definitions for all objects in the system.

Portability:

The VolVis system, written in C, is highly portable, running on most Unix workstations supporting X/Motif. The system has been tested on Silicon Graphics, Sun, Hewlett-Packard, Digital Equipment Corporation, and IBM workstations and PCs running Linux.

Freely available:

The high cost of most visualization systems and difficulties in obtaining their source code often lead researchers to write their own tools for specific visualization tasks. VolVis is freely available as source code to not-for-profit organizations. There is a small fee for for-profit organizations.

VolVis Future:

The VisLab is committed to continuing research and support of VolVis. Currently, we are doing research and development to extend VolVis funcionality, usability and stability. Lots of new features are expected to be incorporated within the next year: like support for irregular grids, parallel rendering, and flow visualization.