[vtkusers] On-demand loading of volume data

[Elvis Stansvik]

Hi all,

I'm working on tool for visualizing and working with tomography and
spectrometry data coming from the analysis of drill cores.

One of the views in the program is supposed to be a vertical view of the
entire bore hole, with a scale showing the depth down the hole, with some
charts showing analysis results (mostly element concentrations) along the
the hole.

Now to my VTK-related question: At low zoom levels, the view should just
show a schematic view of the drill core (essentially just a rectangle), but
at higher zoom levels, where less than ~3 meters of core is in view, slices
through the volumes obtained from our tomography should be used to
visualize the core. The attached rough UI sketch explains the setup much
better than I can with just words.

The idea is to use VTK for the visualization of the core at higher zoom
levels. Since the volumetric data for the entire (~1000 m) core is huge, it
obviously can't be loaded into a VTK pipeline all at once. Some kind of on
demand loading is required. So my questions are:

1) What (if any) mechanisms does VTK provide for loading volume data on
demand, based on what region of space is currently shown in the view
presented to the user?

2) How would you go about tackling this visualization problem using VTK?
Any pointers and advise is highly welcome, as I'm completely new to VTK.

An overall requirement is that the UI should be reasonably responsive while
scrolling the view at high zoom levels. Obviously there will be some time
required for VTK to render the new volume data when the scrolling stops,
but the scrolling itself should not be jerky. The program is to be run on a
reasonably fast laptop.

Best regards,
Elvis
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