Voreen (''vo''lume ''re''ndering ''en''gine) is an

open-source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...

volume visualization library and development platform. Through the use of

GPU A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed for digital image processing and to accelerate computer graphics, being present either as a discrete video card or embedded on motherboards, mobile phones, personal ...

-based

volume rendering In scientific visualization and computer graphics, volume rendering is a set of techniques used to display a 2D projection of a 3D discretely sampled data set, typically a 3D scalar field. A typical 3D data set is a group of 2D slice image ...

techniques it allows high frame rates on standard graphics hardware to support interactive volume exploration.

History

Voreen was initiated at the Department of Computer Science at the

University of Münster The University of Münster (, until 2023 , WWU) is a public research university located in the city of Münster, North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany. With more than 43,000 students and over 120 fields of study in 15 departments, it is Germany's ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

in 2004 and was first released on 11 April 2008 under the GNU general public license (GPL). Voreen is written in

C++ C++ (, pronounced "C plus plus" and sometimes abbreviated as CPP or CXX) is a high-level, general-purpose programming language created by Danish computer scientist Bjarne Stroustrup. First released in 1985 as an extension of the C programmin ...

utilizing the Qt framework and using the

OpenGL OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) is a Language-independent specification, cross-language, cross-platform application programming interface (API) for rendering 2D computer graphics, 2D and 3D computer graphics, 3D vector graphics. The API is typic ...

rendering acceleration API, and is able to achieve high interactive frame rates on consumer graphics hardware. It is platform independent and compiles on

Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

and

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

. The source code and documentation, and also pre-compiled binaries for

and

, are available from its website. Since October 2024, Voreen is developed in an open repository on GitHub. Although it is intended and mostly used for medical applications, any other kind of volume data can be handled, e.g., microscopy, flow data or other simulations.

Concepts

The visualization environment VoreenVE based on that engine is designed for authoring and performing interactive visualizations of volumetric data. Different visualizations can be assembled in form of so-called ''networks'' via

rapid prototyping Rapid prototyping is a group of techniques used to quickly fabricate a scale model of a physical part or assembly using three-dimensional computer aided design ( CAD) data. Construction of the part or assembly is usually done using 3D printing ...

, with each network consisting of several ''processors''. Processors perform more or less specialized tasks for the entire rendering process, ranging from supplying data over raycasting, geometry creation and rendering to image processing. Within the limits of their respective purposes, the processors can be combined freely with each other, and thereby granting a great amount of flexibility and providing a uniform way of handling

. Authors who need to implement a certain rendering technique can confine their work basically on the development of new processors, whereas users who only want to access a certain visualization simply need to employ the appropriate processors or networks and do not need to care about technical details.

Features

Visualization * Direct volume rendering (DVR),

isosurface An isosurface is a three-dimensional analog of an isoline. It is a surface that represents points of a constant value (e.g. pressure, temperature, velocity, density) within a volume of space; in other words, it is a level set of a continuous f ...

rendering,

maximum intensity projection In scientific visualization, a maximum intensity projection (MIP) is a method for 3D data that projects in the visualization plane the voxels with maximum intensity that fall in the way of parallel rays traced from the viewpoint to the plane of ...

(MIP) * Support of different

illumination model {{Short description, none This article lists common shading algorithms used in computer graphics. Interpolation techniques These techniques can be combined with any illumination model: * Flat shading * Gouraud shading * Phong shading Illuminatio ...

s (

Phong reflection model The Phong reflection model (also called Phong illumination or Phong lighting) is an empirical model of the local illumination of points on a surface designed by the computer graphics researcher Bui Tuong Phong. In 3D computer graphics, it is ...

toon shading Cel shading or toon shading is a type of non-photorealistic rendering designed to make 3D computer graphics appear to be flat by using less shading color instead of a shade gradient or tints and shades. A cel shader In computer graphi ...

ambient occlusion In 3D computer graphics, modeling, and animation, ambient occlusion is a shading and rendering technique used to calculate how exposed each point in a scene is to ambient lighting. For example, the interior of a tube is typically more occlude ...

) * Large (out-of-core) data visualization (using an OpenCL octree raycaster) * Streamline-based vector field visualization * Multimodal volume rendering * Geometry rendering with support for

order-independent transparency Order-independent transparency (OIT) is a class of techniques in rasterization, rasterisational computer graphics for rendering Transparency (graphic), transparency in a 3D scene, which do not require rendering geometry in sorted order for alpha co ...

* Flexible combination of image processing operators (depth darkening, glow, chromadepth,

edge detection Edge or EDGE may refer to: Technology Computing * Edge computing, a network load-balancing system * Edge device, an entry point to a computer network * Adobe Edge, a graphical development application * Microsoft Edge, a web browser developed b ...

) * Visualization of time-varying as well as segmented 3D datasets * Support for 1D and 2D

transfer function In engineering, a transfer function (also known as system function or network function) of a system, sub-system, or component is a function (mathematics), mathematical function that mathematical model, models the system's output for each possible ...

CLUT In computer graphics, a palette is the set of available colors from which an image can be made. In some systems, the palette is fixed by the hardware design, and in others it is dynamic, typically implemented via a color lookup table (CLUT), ...

s * Configurable views for building more complex applications (triple view/quad view/tabbed view/splitter) * Plotting * Volume Ensemble visualization (similarity plot, ensemble mean/variance, parallel coordinates) Volume Processing * Isosurface extraction * Efficient basic 3D-image processing for very large (out-of-core) volumes * Very large volume analysis (connected components, vessel network analysis) * Interactive volume segmentation (random walker-based, vesselness filtering, basic thresholding) * Interactive volume registration (manual or landmark-based) * Vector field volume processing (Jacobian matrix, Delta/Q/Lambda2 vortex criterion, coreline extraction) * Out-of-core processing of spatio-temporal multi-field ensemble datasets (ensemble analysis) * OpenLB integration for flow simulation ensemble generation Interaction * Configurable application mode for improving usability for domain experts * Axis aligned and arbitrarily aligned clipping planes * Editors for 1D and 2D transfer functions * Inspection of intermediate results * Distance measurements Data I/O * Support for several volume file formats (e.g.

DICOM Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) is a technical standard for the digital storage and Medical image sharing, transmission of medical images and related information. It includes a file format definition, which specifies the str ...

TIFF Tag Image File Format or Tagged Image File Format, commonly known by the abbreviations TIFF or TIF, is an image file format for storing raster graphics images, popular among graphic artists, the publishing industry, and photographers. TIFF is w ...

stacks,

HDF5 Hierarchical Data Format (HDF) is a set of file formats (HDF4, HDF5) designed to store and organize large amounts of data. Originally developed at the U.S. National Center for Supercomputing Applications, it is supported by The HDF Group, a non- ...

, RAW, NetCDF, VTI, NIfTI-1) * High-resolution screenshot and camera animation generation with

anti-aliasing Anti-aliasing may refer to any of a number of techniques to combat the problems of aliasing in a sampled signal such as a digital image or digital audio recording. Specific topics in anti-aliasing include: * Anti-aliasing filter, a filter used b ...

FFmpeg FFmpeg is a free and open-source software project consisting of a suite of libraries and programs for handling video, audio, and other multimedia files and streams. At its core is the command-line ffmpeg tool itself, designed for processing vide ...

-based video export *

Python Python may refer to: Snakes * Pythonidae, a family of nonvenomous snakes found in Africa, Asia, and Australia ** ''Python'' (genus), a genus of Pythonidae found in Africa and Asia * Python (mythology), a mythical serpent Computing * Python (prog ...

scripting for offline image processing and visualization * Geometry in/export (e.g. for

Additive Manufacturing 3D printing, or additive manufacturing, is the construction of a three-dimensional object from a CAD model or a digital 3D model. It can be done in a variety of processes in which material is deposited, joined or solidified under computer ...

)

References

External links

Voreen website

Source code on GitHub
{{Visualization, state=expanded Free data and information visualization software Free 3D graphics software Free software programmed in C++ 3D imaging Free DICOM software Science software that uses Qt Science software for Linux

History

Concepts

Features

See also

References

External links