The application of scene synthesis techniques to the display of multidimensional image data

Abstract

Superimposition of two image data sets allows the spatial distribution of one to be directly related to that of the other. If the two data sets have different spatial structures, the composite image is generally confusing and difficult to interpret. A method of representing image data sets in the form of naturally occurring variables in a realistic apparently three-dimensional scene is presented. One data set is represented by the topography of a surface, depicted by shaded-relief methods, while another is represented by the color of the surface, or by the color of an overlaid transparency. Presentation in this form exploits the normal scene decomposition abilities of the human visual system, allowing intuitive appreciation and separation of the scene, and hence data set, variables. The method relies on techniques for the modeling of surfaces and surface reflectance to render the synthesised scenes realistically.