3d texture maps (linux, TNT2, X4.0, new drivers)

Hello

I’m working on a project for my masters degree. I need to do some
volume visualization of data, and the best way to do it is to use 3d textures.
First I tried the example program from the Red Book. It is VERY slow (maybe 1
frame every few seconds), although it seems to work. I also tried the siggraph '99
example - vol3dtex. It displays a skull … also very slow. The vol2dtex works
great, but of course this is not what I need to do. I guess I would assume that 3d
texturemaps are not supported by Nvidia on TNT2 under linux, except that I had
heard that Quake III uses 3d textures for lightmaps. I have quake III on this
machine, and it runs great (with lightmaps).
If anyone has any idea about what I (and these demos) may be doing wrong, or if
you need more info to help, please either respond here or email me at
wade@pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu

Thanks in advance,

Wade Lutgen

The problem is that TNT2 doesn’t support 3d textures, only a few of todays cards do, so it falls back to software rendering.

And i don’t think Quake 3 uses 3d textures for lightmaps, i can’t figure out any reason why it should …

Could you mention any card that supports 3D textures? it would be nice to try out. PC-cards that is.

In my recently finished diploma/master thesis I implemented interactive and animated volume rendering, streaming data from disk (10-40 GB data-set), each volume 90x128x128 (8 or 16 bits). The volume rendering is based on 3D-textures and intersecting polygons, as you mentioned. Fortunately I was using an Onyx2 with InfiniteReality.
You could have a look at my master thesis at ftp://ftp.nsc.liu.se/pub/plg/vispic.ps.gz, there is also an animation volume-animation.mpg (60MB, 3 min 30 s).
This animation is just captured with a fixed camera angle, so it doesn’t do the work justice, IMO. It is interactive manipulation that is really nice.

/ Patric

[This message has been edited by plg (edited 04-28-2000).]

Well, i think the upcoming ATI Radeon is going to support 3d textures. I think that it’s only the professional cards that support 3d textures at this time.