GPU Volume Rendering with Hierarchical Compression Using VDB

We propose a compression-based approach to GPU rendering of large volumetric data using OpenVDB and NanoVDB. We use OpenVDB to create a lossy, fixed-rate compressed representation of the volume on the host, and use NanoVDB to perform fast, low-overhead, and on-the-fly decompression during rendering. We show that this approach is fast, works well even in a (incoherent) Monte Carlo path tracing context, can significantly reduce the memory requirements of volume rendering, and can be used as an almost drop-in replacement into existing 3D texture-based renderers.

@article{zellmann2025_2504.04564,
  title={ GPU Volume Rendering with Hierarchical Compression Using VDB },
  author={ Stefan Zellmann and Milan Jaros and Jefferson Amstutz and Ingo Wald },
  journal={arXiv preprint arXiv:2504.04564},
  year={ 2025 }
}