Hardware-accelerated visualization of volume-sampled distance fields

We present a method of visualizing volume-sampled distance fields, taking advantage of hardware-acceleration of modern graphics hardware. Although conventional distance fields can represent only 2-manifold surfaces in a stable way, we have developed a technique of representing both manifold and non-manifold surfaces in a volume created by sampling a segmented distance field. The volume-sampled distance fields can be visualized effectively with pre-integrated volume rendering by embedding the interpolating function as a lookup table called vertex generation diagram into graphics hardware. We developed a simple system for smoothly blending two surface models in the distance function domain, and confirmed that our proposed representation of surface models is applicable to existing methods of geometric processing using implicit representations. We also confirmed that proposed methods of deformation and visualization can be executed at sufficient quality and speed using commodity graphics hardware on a standard PC.