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The visualization toolkit (VTK) is a popular cross-platform, open source toolkit for scientific and medical data visualization, processing, and analysis. It supports a wide variety of data formats, algorithms, and rendering techniques for both polygonal and volumetric data. In particular, VTK's volume rendering module has long provided a comprehensive set of features such as plane clipping, color and opacity transfer functions, lighting, and other controls needed for visualization. However, due to VTK's legacy OpenGL backend and its reliance on a deprecated API, the system did not take advantage of the latest improvements in graphics hardware or the flexibility of a programmable pipeline. Additionally, this dependence on an antiquated pipeline posed restrictions when running on emerging computing platforms, thereby limiting its overall applicability. In response to these shortcomings, the VTK community developed a new and improved volume rendering module, which not only provides a modern graphics processing unit-based implementation, but also augments its capabilities with new features such as fast volume clipping, gradient-magnitude-based opacity modulation, render to texture, and hardware-based volume picking.

This article features some of the latest advances and applications in computer graphics technology.

This article features some of the latest advances and applications in computer graphics technology.

The genre of “computer art” began in the 1950s, when long exposure photography was used to capture images created by an oscilloscope manipulating electronic waves on a small fluorescent screen. Through the 1960s, most works of computer art were created using plotters and impact printers by the scientists and engineers who had access to emerging computing technology. By the 1970s, artists were learning to program, and some universities began to integrate computers into the fine arts curriculum. The widespread adoption of computers and the availability of off-the-shelf paint programs in the 1980s brought computer art to the masses. At the same time, computer graphics and special effects were beginning their takeover of the entertainment industry through Hollywood films, TV shows, and video games. By the 1990s, the term computer art was fading, and computers were becoming a mainstream part of arts and entertainment.

Despite an eager market, the lack of high-performing virtual-reality products at consumer-level prices has relegated entertainment VR applications to something you'd find in an amusement park or still languishing as a prototype. However, the announcement of several new high-performance VR devices aimed at the consumer market suggests that we might soon have more immersive gaming options.

Although no one has yet to recreate Rosie from the animated sitcom The Jetsons, now more than half a century later there are some recently released and upcoming products that capture aspects of that highly skilled household robot. Recognizing family members; reminding them of tasks and events; following them through the house with music, movies, and games; and cooking a customized, artistic breakfast for everyone are just some of the features these new products boast. This article features some of the latest advances and applications in household robotics technology.

Recent advances in smaller, lower-powered processors are fueling both the next generation of fitness products as well as imaginative, fashionable, and entertaining new applications of wearable computing. Wearable devices may truly take off in 2015. This article features some of the latest advances and applications in computer graphics technology.

The Insight Toolkit (ITK) initiative from the National Library of Medicine has provided a suite of state-of-the-art segmentation and registration algorithms ideally suited to volume visualization and analysis. A volume visualization application that effectively utilizes these algorithms provides many benefits: it allows access to ITK functionality for non-programmers, it creates a vehicle for sharing and comparing segmentation techniques, and it serves as a visual debugger for algorithm developers. This paper describes the integration of image processing functionalities provided by the ITK into VolView, a visualization application for high performance volume rendering. A free version of this visualization application is publicly available and is available in the online version of this paper. The process for developing ITK plugins for VolView according to the publicly available API is described in detail, and an application of ITK VolView plugins to the segmentation of Abdominal Aortic Aneurysms (AAAs) is presented. The source code of the ITK plugins is also publicly available and it is included in the online version.

This article features some of the latest advances and applications in computer graphics technology.

This installment covers an array of products that transform the real world into digital space or bring digital objects into the real world. These products' applications range from art to science, including home decorating, custom jewelry, customized prosthetics, and industrial inspection.