(MIP) of a whole body
PET scan. image of the main asteroid belt and the Trojan asteroids. in
water of a simultaneous release of SF6 and NH3. .
Computer animation Computer animation is the art, technique, and science of creating moving images via the use of
computers. It is becoming more common to be created by means of
3D computer graphics, though
2D computer graphics are still widely used for stylistic, low bandwidth, and faster
real-time rendering needs. Sometimes the target of the animation is the computer itself, but sometimes the target is another
medium, such as
film. It is also referred to as CGI (
Computer-generated imagery or computer-generated imaging), especially when used in films. Applications include
medical animation, which is most commonly utilized as an instructional tool for medical professionals or their patients.
Computer simulation Computer simulation is a computer program, or network of computers, that attempts to
simulate an abstract
model of a particular system. Computer simulations have become a useful part of
mathematical modelling of many natural systems in physics, and computational physics, chemistry and biology; human systems in economics, psychology, and social science; and in the process of engineering and new technology, to gain insight into the operation of those systems, or to observe their behavior. The simultaneous visualization and simulation of a system is called
visulation. Computer simulations vary from computer programs that run a few minutes, to network-based groups of computers running for hours, to ongoing simulations that run for months. The scale of events being simulated by computer simulations has far exceeded anything possible (or perhaps even imaginable) using the traditional paper-and-pencil
mathematical modeling: over 10 years ago, a desert-battle simulation, of one force invading another, involved the modeling of 66,239 tanks, trucks and other vehicles on simulated terrain around
Kuwait, using multiple supercomputers in the
DoD High Performance Computing Modernization Program.
Information visualization Information visualization is the study of "the
visual representation of large-scale collections of non-numerical information, such as files and lines of code in
software systems,
library and bibliographic
databases, networks of relations on the
internet, and so forth". The key difference between scientific visualization and information visualization is that information visualization is often applied to data that is not generated by scientific inquiry. Some examples are graphical representations of data for business, government, news and social media.
Interface technology and perception Interface technology and
perception shows how new interfaces and a better understanding of underlying perceptual issues create new opportunities for the scientific visualization community.
Surface rendering Rendering is the process of generating an image from a
model, by means of computer programs. The model is a description of three-dimensional objects in a strictly defined language or data structure. It would contain geometry, viewpoint,
texture,
lighting, and
shading information. The image is a
digital image or
raster graphics image. The term may be by analogy with an "artist's rendering" of a scene. 'Rendering' is also used to describe the process of calculating effects in a video editing file to produce final video output. Important rendering techniques are: ;
Scanline rendering and rasterisation : A high-level representation of an image necessarily contains elements in a different domain from pixels. These elements are referred to as primitives. In a schematic drawing, for instance, line segments and curves might be primitives. In a graphical user interface, windows and buttons might be the primitives. In 3D rendering, triangles and polygons in space might be primitives. ;Ray casting :
Ray casting is primarily used for realtime simulations, such as those used in 3D computer games and cartoon animations, where detail is not important, or where it is more efficient to manually fake the details in order to obtain better performance in the computational stage. This is usually the case when a large number of frames need to be animated. The resulting surfaces have a characteristic 'flat' appearance when no additional tricks are used, as if objects in the scene were all painted with matte finish. ;Radiosity :
Radiosity, also known as Global Illumination, is a method that attempts to simulate the way in which directly illuminated surfaces act as indirect light sources that illuminate other surfaces. This produces more realistic shading and seems to better capture the '
ambience' of an indoor scene. A classic example is the way that shadows 'hug' the corners of rooms. ;Ray tracing :
Ray tracing is an extension of the same technique developed in scanline rendering and ray casting. Like those, it handles complicated objects well, and the objects may be described mathematically. Unlike scanline and casting, ray tracing is almost always a Monte Carlo technique, that is one based on averaging a number of randomly generated samples from a model.
Volume rendering Volume rendering is a technique used to display a 2D projection of a 3D discretely
sampled data set. A typical 3D data set is a group of 2D slice images acquired by a
CT or
MRI scanner. Usually these are acquired in a regular pattern (e.g., one slice every millimeter) and usually have a regular number of image
pixels in a regular pattern. This is an example of a regular volumetric grid, with each volume element, or
voxel represented by a single value that is obtained by sampling the immediate area surrounding the voxel.
Volume visualization According to
Rosenblum (1994) "volume visualization examines a set of techniques that allows viewing an object without mathematically representing the other surface. Initially used in
medical imaging, volume visualization has become an essential technique for many sciences, portraying phenomena become an essential technique such as clouds, water flows, and molecular and biological structure. Many volume visualization algorithms are computationally expensive and demand large data storage. Advances in hardware and software are generalizing volume visualization as well as real time performances". Developments of web-based technologies, and in-browser rendering have allowed of simple volumetric presentation of a cuboid with a changing frame of reference to show volume, mass and density data. == Applications ==