Perception-Based Transparency Optimization
for Direct Volume Rendering

Ming-Yuen Chan²     Yingcai Wu¹     Wai-Ho Mak²     Wei Chen³     Huamin Qu^2
1Microsoft Research Asia      ²Hong Kong University of Science and Technology       ²Zhejiang University

Experiment on the effect of color on transparency perception using Neghip dataset. The outer layer structures in pink are assigned with different saturation values. From left to right: 100%, 75%, 50%, and 25%. The results show different transparency effects.

The semi-transparent nature of direct volume rendered images is useful to depict layered structures in a volume. However, obtaining a semi-transparent result with the layers clearly revealed is difficult and may involve tedious adjustment on opacity and other rendering parameters. Furthermore, the visual quality of layers also depends on various perceptual factors. In this paper, we propose an auto-correction method for enhancing the perceived quality of the semi-transparent layers in direct volume rendered images. We introduce a suite of new measures based on psychological principles to evaluate the perceptual quality of transparent structures in the rendered images. By optimizing rendering parameters within an adaptive and intuitive user interaction process, the quality of the images is enhanced such that specific user requirements can be met. Experimental results on various datasets demonstrate the effectiveness and robustness of our method.

@article {YWu2009b,
author = {Ming-Yuen Chan and Yingcai Wu and Wai-Ho Mak and Wei Chen and Huamin Qu},
title = {Perception-Based Transparency Optimization for Direct Volume Rendering} ,
journal = {IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics},
year = {2009},
volume = {15},
number = {6},
pages = {1283--1290 }
}