Fourier Volume Rendering on the GPU Using a Split-Stream-FFT

TL;DR: This paper presents a novel implementation of the Fast Fourier Transform called Split-Stream-FFT, which maps the recursive structure of the FFT to the GPU in an efficient way and visualizes large volumetric data set in interactive frame rates on a mid-range computer system.

Abstract: The Fourier volume rendering technique operates in the frequency domain and creates line integral projections of a 3D scalar field. These projections can be efficiently generated in ) log O( 2 N N time by utilizing the Fourier Slice-Projection theorem. However, until now, the mathematical difficulty of the Fast Fourier Transform prevented acceleration by graphics hardware and therefore limited a wider use of this visualization technique in state-of-theart applications. In this paper we describe how to utilize current commodity graphics hardware to perform Fourier volume rendering directly on the GPU. We present a novel implementation of the Fast Fourier Transform: This Split-Stream-FFT maps the recursive structure of the FFT to the GPU in an efficient way. Additionally, highquality resampling within the frequency domain is discussed. Our implementation visualizes large volumetric data set in interactive frame rates on a mid-range computer system.