Future Work

Astronomers are interested in drawing polyhedra around an interesting feature, extracting the data in that sub-volume and analysing them. As more complex shapes need to be drawn inside a volume of data a generalisation of the depth plane may be necessary. Since this depth plane is somewhat analogous to the familiar ``Z-buffer'' used in surface-rendering graphics libraries, we may see these developments as a hybrid of volumetric rendering and surface rendering.

© Copyright Astronomical Society of Australia 1997