Conveying the 3D shape of smoothly curving transparent surfaces viatexture
Interrante, V.; Fuchs, H.; Pizer, S.M.
Visualization and Computer Graphics, IEEE Transactions on
Volume 3, Issue 2, Apr-Jun 1997 Page(s):98 - 117
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/2945.597794
Summary:Transparency can be a useful device for depicting multiple
overlapping surfaces in a single image. The challenge is to render the
transparent surfaces in such a way that their 3D shape can be readily
understood and their depth distance from underlying structures clearly
perceived. This paper describes our investigations into the use of
sparsely-distributed discrete, opaque texture as an artistic device for
more explicitly indicating the relative depth of a transparent surface
and for communicating the essential features of its 3D shape in an
intuitively meaningful and minimally occluding way. The driving
application for this work is the visualization of layered surfaces in
radiation therapy treatment planning data, and the technique is
illustrated on transparent isointensity surfaces of radiation dose. We
describe the perceptual motivation and artistic inspiration for defining
a stroke texture that is locally oriented in the direction of greatest
normal curvature (and in which individual strokes are of a length
proportional to the magnitude of the curvature in the direction they
indicate), and we discuss two alternative methods for applying this
texture to isointensity surfaces defined in a volume. We propose an
experimental paradigm for objectively measuring observers' ability to
judge the shape and depth of a layered transparent surface, in the
course of a task which is relevant to the needs of radiotherapy
treatment planning, and use this paradigm to evaluate the practical
effectiveness of our approach through a controlled observer experiment
based on images generated from actual clinical data
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