System and method for volume rendering of finite element models

摘要

The present invention converts an unstructured grid of finite volume data to a rectangular grid of voxel definitions for use by a volume rendering technique operable on such a rectangular grid of voxel definitions. The unstructured finite element grid is sliced using a slicing process generating intersection polygons at scalar data at polygon vertices. This vertex scalar data is then mapped to shades of a color based on a linear mapping function. A linear interpolation is then utilized to generate a rectangular two dimensional array, for each slicing interval, which is dependent upon a pixel resolution of the display device utilized within the data processing system implementing the present invention. Each pixel represents a three-dimensional point in the viewing coordinate space wherein each pixel represents a voxel corner. The color of each pixel is used to determine the scalar value to be associated with each voxel corner. This created rectilinear grid of voxel definitions is then utilized within a volume rendering process operable on data associated with rectangular grids.