Volume Skeletonization and Fleshing

This article presents the concept of volume skeletonization and fleshing as a generalized process of the traditional field value-dependent transfer function (TF) design. Volume skeletonization delineates the topological structure of a given volume dataset by means of a graph called volume skeleton tree (VST), which consists of volumetric critical points and their connectivity. Both locations of critical points and their critical field values in the VST are then passed to the phase of volume fleshing to accentuate color and opacity more adaptively in the design of TFs for comprehensible volume rendering. Visually pleasing visualization results show the feasibility of the present approach as a volume data mining tool.