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The Visualization Toolkit (VTK) is an open source, permissively licensed, cross-platform toolkit for scientific data processing, visualization, and data analysis. It is over two decades old, originally developed for a very different graphics card architecture. Modern graphics cards feature fully programmable, highly parallelized architectures with large core counts. VTK’s rendering code was rewritten to take advantage of modern graphics cards, maintaining most of the toolkit’s programming interfaces. This offers the opportunity to compare the performance of old and new rendering code on the same systems/cards. Significant improvements in rendering speeds and memory footprints mean that scientific data can be visualized in greater detail than ever before. The widespread use of VTK means that these improvements will reap significant benefits. Keywords: Visualization, Toolkit, Data analysis, Scientific data

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.

ParaView is a popular open-source general-purpose scientific visualization application. One of the many visualization tools available within ParaView is the volume rendering of unstructured meshes. Volume rendering is a technique that renders a mesh as a translucent solid, thereby allowing the user to see every point in three-dimensional space simultaneously. Because volume rendering is computationally intensive, ParaView now employs a unique parallel rendering algorithm to speed the processes. The parallel rendering algorithm is very flexible. It works equally well for both volumes and surfaces, and can properly render the intersection of a volume and opaque polygonal surfaces. The parallel rendering algorithm can also render images for tiled displays. In this paper, we explore the implementation of parallel unstructured volume rendering in ParaView.

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.

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.

A three-dimensional projection image representing a projection of a data volume at a predetermined orientation, three cut plane images representing respective mutually orthogonal planar cuts through the data volume, a graphical representation of the data volume at that orientation and graphical representations of the cut planes are displayed in spaced relationship. Each of the cut planes has a respective positional relationship to the data volume graphic that corresponds to the positional relationship of the respective cut plane to the data volume. The graphical representations are displayed in different colors. Any one of the four images can be active in the sense that images are reconstructed in real-time as a trackball is moved. Which of the four images is active is indicated by displaying the corresponding graphical representation in a color denoting the active state.