Section: Overall Objectives

Efficient visualization of very large scenes

Being able to handle massive data sets has been a strategic objective for French Computer Science for the last few years. In our research field, this leads us to investigate both the scientific visualization of very large data sets (which helps exploring and understanding the data provided, for instance, by our scientific partners from other research fields), and the real-time, realistic rendering of large size natural scenes, seeking for the interactive exploration and possible immersion in such scenes as a long term goal. More precisely, our objectives are to develop:

• Novel methods for the interactive visualization of complex, hybrid massive data sets, possibly embedding 1D and 2D structures within volumetric data which may represent scalar, vector or tensor fields.

• Perception based criteria for switching between levels of detail or between the representations of different nature we use in multi-models.

• Real-time techniques enabling us to achieve the rendering of full, natural scenes by exploring new, non-polygonal representations and relying on the programmable graphics hardware whereas possible.