Hesser, JurgenManner, ReinhardKnittel, GunterStrasser, WolfgangPfister, HanspeterKaufman, Arie2014-10-212014-10-2119951467-8659https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8659.1995.cgf143-0111.xVolume rendering is a key technique in scientific visualization that lends itself to significant exploitable parallelism. The high computational demands of real-time volume rendering and continued technological advances in the area of VLSl give impetus to the development of special-purpose volume rendering architectures. This paper presents and characterizes three recently developed volume rendering engines which are based on the ray-casting method. A taxonomy of the algorithmic variants of ray-casting and details of each ray-casting architecture are discussed. The paper then compares the machinefeatures and provides an outlook onfuture developments in the area of volume rendering hardware.10.1111/j.1467-8659.1995.cgf143-0111.x111-122