Lars Lippert

Welcome to the EVOLVE homepage

The Experimental Volume Visualization Environment ( EVOLVE ) is a volume visualization system that combines the advantages coming along with fourier domain volume rendering and with wavelet domain rendering. It is designed to achieve interactive rendering rates on low cost workstations and for internet applications. The rendering process is based on a fast and accurate calculation of hierachical splats. At the moment EVOLVE includes the following features:

• Hybrid concept
  • Fourier domain volume rendering
  • Wavelet domain volume rendering
• Multiresolution approach for progressive refinement
• Fast and accurate volume and color integration
• Wavelet compression
• Interactive frame rates
• Scalable
• Hardware support (3D textures, accumulation buffer)
• Progressive refinement of rendered images
• Interactive shading
• Depth cueing
• Multiviews

Awards:

• Günter Enderle Award for the best technical paper (EUROGRAPHICS '95)
• Computers & Graphics Best Paper Award 1995 (recieved 1/97)

Concept & Implementation:

• Markus Gross
• Lars Lippert
• Richard Dittrich
• Andreas Eggenberger
• Silvio Haering
• Andreas Hubeli
• Christian Kurmann
• Florian Nussberger
• Jean Jacques Pittet
• Philip Ruser
• Christoph Voegtli

Publications:

See publications list of the Computer Graphics Group.

Images:

• Screenshot of the user interface
  
  

• Results
  
  
  Shaded skulls
  
  
  Classified head

Movies (MPEG):

All frames were rendered in real-time (grabbed area: 384 x 288 pixels).

Movie 1: Variation of viewing direction and progressive refinement

• Hardware: SGI Indy R4400/150 MHz
• Volume size: 256 x 256 x 256
• Dataset: CT-head, extracted skull
• Filesize: 1806 kBytes

This movie illustrates the rendering performance of EVOLVE. On the left side the rendered image is displayed and rendering timings are given. On the right the viewing direction (red line) relative to the volume data set (blue cube) is shown. If the viewing direction is choosen, the image refines progressively.

Movie 2: Variation of depth-cueing direction and progressive refinement

• Hardware: SGI Indy R4400/150 MHz\
• Volume size: 256 x 256 x 256
• Dataset: CT-head, extracted skull
• Filesize: 1743 kBytes

Movie 2 shows the influence of different viewing directions. On the left side the rendered image is displayed and rendering timings are given. On the right the viewing direction (red line) and the position of the light source (white sphere) relative to the volume data set (blue cube) are shown. If the position of the light source is choosen, the image refines progressively. Note that viewing direction and depth-cueing direction can be chosen independently.

Movie 3: Hardware supported rendering and multiviews

• Hardware: SGI Indigo2 Maximum Impact R10000/195 MHz
• Volume size: 256 x 128 x 256
• Dataset: MR-head, classified (skin [white], brain [red], tumor [blue])
• Filesize: 1105 kBytes

The rendering concept of EVOLVE is well suited for hardware support. We use the alpha-blending capabilities of the SGI's Maximum Impact for fast splat accumulation. This movie displays the rendering performance of single and tripleview rendering. As before, the image refines progessively. We choose the brain tissue to be more important than skin or tumor, thus during the rendering process brain will be displayed first.

Applet:

EVOLVE for JAVA Applet v. 2.2