Volume Scene Graphs

This paper discusses volume scene graphs — a flexible hierarchical structure for composing scenes containing volume data sets and space-filling functions. Scene graph nodes are functions that, when evaluated at a point in space and time, compute and return a value. Typical nodes return values sampled from volume data sets, compute values using procedural texture algorithms, or filter and composite values returned by one or more other scene graph functions. Voxelization of a scene graph repeatedly evaluates the graph's functions over a gridded region of space. Examples are shown that compose scenes containing multiple volume data sets of differing resolutions and modalities.