[vtkusers] volume rendering and memory

[Suzanne Little]

Dear all,

I'm trying to do volume rendering on a sequence of microscope images of 
cells. The images are 8-bit, grayscale, tiff, 843x937. I can 
successfully render around 300 slices but the program crashes with 
memory issues if I try to use any more. The system setup is VTK5.0, 2 
processors, 1.86GHz, 2GB RAM, windows XP.

Currently I'm using vtkVolumeRayCastMapper (based on the SimpleRayCast 
example that comes with VTK). Images are read using TIFFReader with 
ReleaseDataFlagOn. I've looked at the entry in the FAQ about handling 
large data files but I gather that ImmediateModeRendering and 
TriangleStripper don't apply to the VolumeRayCastMapper?.

What are the limitations of VTK with respect to memory? Have I genuinely 
reached the limits of my system? Or should I be able to render more than 
300 slices?

Thanks,
Suzanne