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InverseVis: Revealing the Hidden with Curved Sphere Tracing

Kai Lawonn, Monique Meuschke and Tobias Günther

Computer Graphics Forum (Eurographics Conference on Visualization), 2024

Abstract

The exploratory analysis of scalar fields on surface meshes presents significant challenges in identifying and visualizing important regions, particularly on the backside of the surface. Previous visualization methods achieved only a limited visibility of significant features, i.e., regions with high or low scalar values, during interactive exploration. In response to this, we propose a novel technique, InverseVis, which leverages curved sphere tracing and uses the otherwise unused space to enhance visibility. Our approach combines both direct and indirect rendering, allowing camera rays to wrap around the surface, thereby revealing information from the backside. To achieve this, we formulate an energy term that guides the image synthesis in previously unused space, highlighting the most important regions of the backside. By quantifying the amount of visible important features, we optimize the camera position to maximize the visibility of the scalar field on both the front and backsides. InverseVis is benchmarked against state-of-the-art methods and a derived technique, showcasing its effectiveness in revealing essential features and outperforming existing approaches.

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