Parallel unstructured volume rendering in ParaView

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.