Eliminating popping artifacts in sheet buffer-based splatting

Splatting is a fast volume rendering algorithm which achieves its speed by projecting voxels in the form of pre-integrated interpolation kernels, or splats. Presently, two main variants of the splatting algorithm exist: (i) the original method, in which all splats are composited back-to-front, and (ii) the sheet-buffer method, in which the splats are added in cache-sheets, aligned with the volume face most parallel to the image plane, which are subsequently composited back-to-front. The former method is prone to cause bleeding artifacts from hidden objects, while the latter method reduces bleeding, but causes very visible color popping artifacts when the orientation of the compositing sheets changes suddenly as the image screen becomes more parallel to another volume face. We present a new variant of the splatting algorithm in which the compositing sheets are always parallel to the image plane, eliminating the condition for popping, while maintaining the insensitivity to color bleeding. This enables pleasing animated viewing of volumetric objects without temporal color and lighting discontinuities. The method uses a hierarchy of partial splats and employs an efficient list-based volume traversal scheme for fast splat access. It also offers more accuracy for perspective splatting as the decomposition of the individual splats facilitates a better approximation to the diverging nature of the rays that traverse the splatting kernels.