Cards that have 3D, paletted textures?

So in my research group we are trying to do some real-time volume rendering on a budget (ie, no SGIs). We’ve been using the VolumePro PCI card with moderate success for some time. Although the card is a true technical marvel (real-time raytracing hardware - in some sense) we’ve grown tired of its limitations (you’re stuck with an orthographic projection and you can’t intersect volume data and polygons) and it exceeds our target cost.

Therefore when we saw the inexpensive Radeon come out with texture_3D we picked one up as quick as we could. The ATI developer site has sample code as well as documentation implying that the Radeon can be used for scientific volume visualization. Imagine my surprise when I find out it doesn’t support paletted textures! Those who have done volvis before probably know that this is practically a requirement for real-time scientific/medical volvis (you’ve got to be able to change the “classification function” interactively).

So is there any consumer-class hardware that supports both texture_3D and paletted_texture? nVidia has one extension, ATI has the other. Therefore each is capable of doing a half-baked rendition of real-time volume visualization. Is there anything available (or that will come out soon) in the consumer market that has both features?

Which GeForce3 cards support paletted textures and texture_3D?

The ASUS V8200 GeForce3 claims to support 3D textures, on the website. Does it support paletted textures?

Any other vendors that support both features?

many thanks,
Karthik

nVidia does support palleted texture, this is good. Word on the street is that the next driver release will support 3D texture (cass, matt?). I did the ATI thing too, it comes so close to being usefull, if only the dudv/dependant texture stuff worked with 3d texture. It doesn’t, trust me. When GF3’s finaly support 3D texture, they should work as a palleted texture.