Real-time rendering of time-varying volume data using a single COTS computer

This paper presents performance results of an out-of-core renderer, aiming at investigating the possibility of real-time rendering of time-varying scalar volume data using a single commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) computer. Our renderer is accelerated using software techniques such as data compression methods and thread-based pipeline mechanisms. These techniques are efficiently implemented on a COTS computer that combines multiple GPUs, CPUs, and storage devices using scalable link interface (SLI), multi-core, and redundant arrays of inexpensive disks (RAID) technologies, respectively. We find that the COTS-based out-of-core renderer achieves a video rate of 35 frames per second (fps) for 258 x 258 x 208 voxel data with 99 time steps. It also demonstrates an almost interactive rate of 4 fps for 512 x 512 x 295 voxel data with 411 time steps.