Abstract
Viewpoint selection is an important task because it considerably influences the amount of information contained in the 2D projected images of 3D objects. Although several methods have been proposed that calculates the optimal position of the viewpoint especially for surface meshes, none has been done for solid objects such as volumes. This report therefore presents a new method of calculating such optimal viewpoints when visualizing volumes using ray-casting techniques by extending an existing method for surface meshes. The major idea behind the present method is to decompose an entire volume into some set of components and then find a globally optimal viewpoint by computing a locally optimal viewpoint for each component. Furthermore, the method employs transfer functions to assign a weight value to each component so that it can emphasize individual features embedded in the volume using the calculated viewpoint.
