Method for Reducing the Amount of Data to be Processed in a Visualization Pipeline

A computer program product, comprising:

• a computer readable storage media, and
• computer program instructions stored on the computer readable medium and executable by a computer for performing the steps of
• reducing an amount of data to be processed in a visualization pipeline comprising data capture;
• data compression comprising dividing the data into blocks;
• data storage;
• data decompression, and
• data rendering comprising the use of a transfer function,
• wherein reducing the amount of data is achieved by adaptively selecting a level-of-detail for each block in the decompression utilizing a significance measure based on said transfer function.

An imaging system, comprising:

• means for realizing a method comprising
• reducing an amount of data to be processed in a visualization pipeline comprising data capture;
• data compression comprising dividing the data into blocks;
• data storage;
• data decompression, and
• data rendering comprising the use of a transfer function,
• wherein reducing the amount of data is achieved by adaptively selecting a level-of-detail for each block in the decompression utilizing a significance measure based on said transfer function.

A method for reducing an amount of data to be processed in a visualization pipeline, the visualization pipeline comprising:

• data capture;
• compression;
• storage;
• decompression, and
• rendering comprising the use of a transfer function,
• wherein the data is divided into blocks in the compression and wherein the reduction is achieved by adaptively selecting a level-of-detail for each block in the decompression utilizing a significance measure based on said transfer function and a histogram of the data in the blocks.