Title
Computation-to-core mapping strategies for iso-surface volume rendering on GPUs
Abstract
Ray casting algorithm is a major component of the direct volume rendering, which exhibits inherent parallelism, making it suitable for graphics processing units (GPUs). However, blindly mapping the ray casting algorithm on a GPU's complex parallel architecture can result in a magnitude of performance loss. In this paper, a novel computation-to-core mapping strategy, called Warp Marching, for the texture-based iso-surface volume rendering is introduced. We evaluate and compare this new strategy with the most commonly used existing mapping strategy. Texture cache performance and load balancing are the two major evaluation factors since they have significant consequences on the overall rendering performance. Through a series of real-life data experiments, we conclude that the texture cache performances of these two computation-to-core mapping strategies are significantly affected by the viewing direction; and the Warp Marching performs better in balancing workloads among threads and concurrent hardware components of a GPU.
Year
DOI
Venue
2015
10.1109/PACIFICVIS.2015.7156372
2015 IEEE Pacific Visualization Symposium (PacificVis)
Keywords
Field
DocType
computation-to-core mapping strategy,isosurface volume rendering,graphics processing unit,GPU,ray casting algorithm,parallel architecture,Warp Marching,texture cache,data visualization
Volume rendering,Cache,Load balancing (computing),Image texture,Computer science,Parallel computing,Ray casting,Texture memory,Graphics processing unit,Rendering (computer graphics)
Conference
ISSN
Citations 
PageRank 
2165-8765
1
0.36
References 
Authors
11
3
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Junpeng Wang110110.27
Fei Yang22114.49
Yong Cao36810.33