Adaptive Raymarching and Multi-Sampled Pre-integration on Graphics Hardware: Application to the Visualization of Gyrokinetic Plasmas Simulations
Résumé
The study of plasmas is a rising research topic in the field of physics. It implies the need for specific algorithms allowing physicists to easily visualize and thus correctly interpret related complex datasets. This paper describes an innovative and highly efficient volume rendering method designed for gyrokinetic simulations. Based on a Raymarching approach that benefits from the latest functionalities offered by current graphics programmable hardware, we exploit the geometrical properties of the tokamak (a physical device used to create plasmas) in order to achieve a rendering at interactive framerates. We therefore introduce a novel and general method for Raymarching volumes with an adaptive step. A good approximation of the rays' continuous integration is obtained by introducing a Multi-Sampled Pre-integrated table. A comparison with a recent gyrokinetic simulations visualization technique demonstrates the improved efficiency of our approach in terms of framerate and quality.