Multiresolution and hierarchical methods for the visualization of volume data

As three-dimensional data sets resulting from simulations or measurements b ecome available at ever growing sizes the need for visualization tools whic h allow the inspection and the analysis of these data sets at interactive r ates is increasing. One way to deal with the complexity is the compression of the data in such a way that the number of cells which have to be process ed by the visualization mapping is reduced. Since this compression will be lossy, it is up to the user to choose between quality or speed. The decisio n will usually be made interactively requiring fast access to a complete hi erarchy of representations of the data set at various levels of resolution. Two different approaches and visualization algorithms based upon them are presented in this paper: wavelet analysis deriving a hierarchy of coarser r epresentations from the original data set and multilevel finite elements ge nerating successively refined tetrahedral grids from an initially coarse tr iangulation. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.