Voreen (volume rendering engine) is an
open-sourcevolume visualization library and development platform. Through the use of
GPU-based
volume rendering techniques it allows high frame rates on standard graphics hardware to support interactive volume exploration.
History
Voreen was initiated at the Department of Computer Science at the
University of Münster,
Germany in 2004 and was first released on 11 April 2008 under the
GNU general public license (GPL). Voreen is written in
C++ utilizing the
Qt framework and using the
OpenGL
rendering acceleration API, and is able to achieve high interactive frame rates on consumer graphics hardware.[1] It is platform independent and compiles on
Windows and
Linux. The source code and documentation, and also pre-compiled binaries for
Windows and
Linux, are available from its website. Although it is intended and mostly used for medical applications,[2] any other kind of volume data can be handled, e.g., microscopy, flow data or other simulations.[3][4]
Concepts
The visualization environment VoreenVE based on that engine is designed for authoring
and performing interactive visualizations of volumetric data. Different visualizations
can be assembled in form of so-called networks via
rapid prototyping,
with each network consisting of several processors.[5] Processors perform more or less specialized tasks for the entire rendering process, ranging
from supplying data over raycasting, geometry creation and rendering to image processing. Within the limits
of their respective purposes, the processors can be combined freely with each other,
and thereby granting a great amount of flexibility and providing a uniform way of
handling
volume rendering. Authors who need to implement a certain rendering
technique can confine their work basically on the development of new processors,
whereas users who only want to access a certain visualization simply need to employ
the appropriate processors or networks and do not need to care about technical
details.
^Eisenmann, U.; Freudling, A.; Metzner, R.; Hartmann, M.; Wirtz, C. R.; Dickhaus, H. (2009). "Volume Rendering for Planning and Performing Neurosurgical Interventions". IFMBE Proceedings. World Congress on Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering, September 7–12, 2009. 25/6. Munich, Germany: 201–204.
doi:
10.1007/978-3-642-03906-5_55.
ISBN978-3-642-03905-8.
ISSN1680-0737.