Sat 1st Dec
9:00-17:00 (full day)
Workshop (limited places, reservation information)

This full-day course will be a comprehensive introduction to the Drishti volume renderer. Drishti is an open source, cross platform, GPU assisted, OpenGL based volume renderer. Drishti's mapping tools are very fast and flexible to allow sophisticated coloring and lighting of volumes.

In the first part of the course attendees will be introduced to the concepts and techniques of volume rendering and how it is used for a range of applications including scientific visualization and special effects. After the introductory session attendees will then be introduced to Drishti through a series of exercises with provided data sets. The following topics will be addressed:

• volume data and file formats
• histogram analysis and data remapping
• 1D and 2D transfer function editing
• composition of transfer functions
• slices and clip planes
• lighting and shadowing
• enclosing surfaces
• sub-volume animation and making movies
• animation of time series, cameras, transfer functions, clip planes
• advanced Drishti functionality (vectors, tensors, networks etc)

The course will be taught by Ajay Limaye (Drishti's primary author) and Drew Whitehouse, both visualization programmers from the Australian National University Supercomputer Facility Vizlab.

No previous volume rendering knowledge will be assumed and attendees are encouraged to bring their own data sets to visualize during the course. For more information on Drishti visit http://sf.anu.edu.au/Vizlab/drishti/

Course Schedule
9.00 Welcome
9.15-10.30 Principles of volume rendering (Whitehouse)
10.30-11.00 Break
11.00-12.30 Introduction to Drishti (Limaye)
12.30-1.30 Lunch
1.30-3.00 Lighting and shading (Limaye)
3.00-3.30 Break
3.30-4:45 Animation (Limaye)
4:45-5:00 Advanced Drishti showcase (Limaye)

Instructors
Ajay Limaye and Drew Whitehouse
Supercomputer Facility Vizlab
Australian National University