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Everything about Volume ray casting

Image-based volume rendering technique

Volume ray casting, sometimes called volumetric ray casting, volumetric ray tracing, or volume ray marching, is an image-based volume rendering technique. It computes 2D images from 3D volumetric data sets. Volume ray casting, which processes volume data, must not be mistaken with ray casting in the sense used in ray tracing, which processes surface data. In the volumetric variant, the computation doesn't stop at the surface but "pushes through" the object, sampling the object along the ray. Unlike ray tracing, volume ray casting does not spawn secondary rays. When the context/application is clear, some authors simply call it ray casting. Because ray marching does not necessarily require an exact solution to ray intersection and collisions, it is suitable for real-time computing for many applications for which ray tracing is unsuitable. Wikipedia →

🧭 Start here: a 6-step reading path

  1. Read the overview: Volume ray castingA 5-minute orientation
  2. Skim a recent paper: A Spherical Volume-Rendering Method of Ocean Scalar Data Based on Adaptive Ray CastingInfluential work since 2022
  3. Pick up a classic book: American FilmThe most-reprinted book on the subject
  4. Read the landmark paper: Voreen: A Rapid-Prototyping Environment for Ray-Casting-Based Volume VisualizationsCited 131 times
  5. Go sideways: Volume renderingA closely related topic
  6. Go sideways: Ray marchingA closely related topic

📖 Definitions

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🗂️ The subject at a glance

  1. Classification
  2. Basic algorithm
  3. Advanced adaptive algorithms
  4. Examples of high quality volumetric ray casting
  5. Ray marching

🏆 Landmark papers (most cited)

🆕 Influential since 2022

📚 Books worth reading

Ranked by number of editions on Open Library, a rough measure of how lasting a book is.

🔗 Related topics