The Visualization Toolkit: An Object-Oriented Approach to 3-D Graphics (2nd Edition) - Hardcover

Schroeder, William; Martin, Ken; Lorensen, Bill

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0139546944 ISBN 13: 9780139546945

Publisher: Prentice Hall Ptr, 1997

Synopsis

This Java-built "Visualization Toolkit (VTK)" will enable readers to represent any set of data--medical, scientific, or financial--in 3D. Users will learn to build 3D Java applets with the VTK software on the CD-ROM. The book covers Web applications like VRML, Java, and Java3D.

About this title

About the Author

WILLIAM J. SCHROEDER is a computational scientist at GE's Corporate R&D Center. Will's research interests include visualization algorithms, polygon reduction techniques, computational geometry, and numerical analysis. Dr. Schroeder has broad experience creating computer design tools for scientists and engineers.

KENNETH M. MARTIN is a computer scientist at GE's Corporate R&D Center. Ken has extensive practical knowledge of Java, VRML, Tcl/Tk, C/C++, and object-oriented design. Dr. Martin's technical contributions include algorithms in computer vision and imaging, vector field visualization, and computer learning.

WILLIAM E. LORENSEN is a graphics engineer at General Electric Corporate R&D Center. Bill is best known for the marching cubes isosurfacing algorithm, and has contributed numerous techniques to the graphics field including boolean textures, dividing cubes, and medical segmentation algorithms. Bill is also co-author of the best-selling text Object-Oriented Modeling and Design.

From the Back Cover

All you need to build state-of-the-art 3D visualization applications!

From weather maps to MRIs, from marketing to finance, 3D visualization technology is revolutionizing the way information is delivered. And the revolution has just begun. Breakthrough tools like the Visualization Toolkit (vtk) Release 2.0 make visualization more practical and powerful than ever.

This book delivers all you need to start building your own visualization applications:

A complete introduction to visualization architectures and image processing algorithms-including essential algorithms for contouring, surface smoothing, cutting, slicing, decimation, and Delaunay triangulation:

* An extensive collection of real-world case studies.
* A working architecture and software design techniques for applying visualization to business and technical problems.
* The complete vtk Release 2.0 software tools-complete C++ class libraries and source code for visualization, plus Tcl-based prototyping libraries and Java bindings...all the software you need for Win95/NT, Solaris, HP-UX, Digital UNIX, and IBM AIX!

Learn how to leverage the power of vtk 2.0 to:

* Build Web-based 3D visualization applications that take advantage of VRML, Java and Java3D.
* Use volume rendering, which allows you to "see into" 3D datasets.
* Use vtk's new 2D imaging pipeline to manipulate, display and combine 2D images into 3D datasets for further processing-and much more.

Advanced 3D visualization is now practical in an unprecedented range of applications. If you're a C++, Java or Tcl/Tk programmer, you need to understand these tools and technologies. Now's the time - and there's no better place to start than The Visualization Toolkit.

From the Inside Flap

Preface

Visualization is a great field to work in these days. Advances in computer hardware and software have brought this technology into the reach of nearly every computer system. Even the ubiquitous personal computer now offers specialized 3D graphics hardware. And with the release of Windows95 and OpenGL, there is an API for 3D graphics as well.

We view visualization and visual computing as nothing less than a new form of communication. All of us have long known the power of images to convey information, ideas, and feelings. Recent trends have brought us 2D images and graphics as evidenced by the variety of graphical user interfaces and business plotting software. But 3D images have been used sparingly, and often by specialists using specialized systems. Now this is changing. We believe we are entering a new era where 3D images, visualizations, and animations will begin to extend, and in some cases, replace the current communication paradigm based on words, mathematical symbols, and 2D images. Our hope is that along the way the human imagination will be freed like never before.

This text and companion software offers one view of visualization. The field is broad, including elements of computer graphics, imaging, computer science, computational geometry, numerical analysis, statistical methods, data analysis, and studies in human perception. We certainly do not pretend to cover the field in its entirety. However, we feel that this text does offer you a great opportunity to learn about the fundamentals of visualization. Not only can you learn from the written word and companion images, but the included software will allow you to practice visualization. You can start by using the sample data we have provided here, and then move on to your own data and applications. We believe that you will soon appreciate visualization as much as we do.

In this, the second edition of Visualization Toolkit and vtk version 2.0, we have added several new features since the first edition. Volume rendering is now fully supported, including the ability to combine opaque surface graphics with volumes. We have added an extensive image processing pipeline that integrates conventional 3D visualization and graphics with imaging. Besides several new filters such as clipping, smoothing, 2D/3D Delaunay triangulation, and a new decimation algorithm, we have added several readers and writers, and better support net-based tools such as Java and VRML. Finally, our PC support has greatly improved, including a nice tool for managing the compile process.

The additions of these features necessitated the addition of three special contributors to the text: Lisa Sobierajski Avila, Rick Avila, and C. Charles Law. Rick and Lisa worked hard to create an object-oriented design for volume rendering, and to insure that the design and software is fully compatible with the surface-based rendering system. Charles is the principle architect and implementor for the imaging pipeline. We are proud of the streaming and caching capability of the architecture: It allows us to handle large data sets despite limited memory resources.

Especially satisfying has been the response from users of the text and software. Not only have we received a warm welcome from these wonderful people, but many of them have contributed code, bug fixes, data, and ideas that greatly improved the system. In fact, it would be best to categorize these people as co-developers rather than users of the system. We would like to encourage anyone else who is interested in sharing their ideas, code, or data to contact the vtk user community, or one of the authors. We would very much welcome any contributions you have to make.

Contact us at kitware.

Edition details

• Publisher: Prentice Hall Ptr
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0139546944
• ISBN 13: 9780139546945
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 672