In aspects, methods and apparatus are provided for generating a haptic effect for a three-dimensional (3D) environment that is experienced virtually by a user. The methods may be performed by a processor, and includes receiving media data that describes the 3D environment, wherein the media data includes haptic data which describes a haptic characteristic associated with at least one object, structure, or event in the 3D environment. The method further includes performing a haptic decoding operation and a haptic rendering operation. The decoding operation may include extracting the haptic data from the media data. The haptic rendering operation may include generating a drive signal and communicating the drive signal to a haptic output device to cause the haptic output device to generate a haptic effect at a user peripheral device. Numerous other aspects are provided.

A method and intersection testing module are provided in a ray tracing system for determining whether a ray intersects a 3D axis-aligned box. The box represents a volume defined by a front-facing plane and a back-facing plane for each of the dimensions of the three-dimensional axis-aligned box. Scaled ray components are determined, wherein a third scaled ray component equals 1. A scaled minimum culling distance and a scaled maximum culling distance are determined. Determined cross-multiplication values are used to identify which of the front-facing planes intersects the ray furthest along the ray and identify which of the back-facing planes intersects the ray least far along the ray. It is determined whether the ray intersects the identified front-facing plane of the box at a position that is no further along the ray than the position at which the ray intersects the identified back-facing plane.

Methods, systems, and computer-readable media for generating a cross-section of a 3D model are disclosed. An example method includes determining a cross-section plane intersecting the 3D model, performing ray-tracing by passing each of a plurality of rays through a corresponding pixel of a viewing plane such that each ray intersects the cross-section plane, determining one or more rays that are within a threshold distance of the 3D model at their respective points of intersection with the cross section plane, and highlighting pixels corresponding to the determined rays.

Embodiments of the present invention provide a system for querying a graph based on applying filters to a visual representation of the graph. The system allows complicated graph query operations to be performed with ease visually. During operation, the system obtains data indicating vertices and edges of a graph. The system displays a visual representation of the graph for a user. The system receives, from the user, a command defining a local graph filter comprising a region in the visual representation. The system then filters a representation of the graph, and stores the filtered representation.

An interference point determining method is provided. The method includes: obtaining a target point cloud corresponding to a highly reflective object from a target channel; obtaining a to-be-determined point cloud at the same pixel position as the target point cloud from each channel other than the target channel based on the target point cloud; based on a distance value and a reflectivity of each to-be-determined point cloud, and distance values and reflectivities respectively corresponding, to other point clouds in a neighborhood of each to-be-determined point cloud, determining whether each to-be-determined point cloud is a suspected interference point; and based on a variance between distance values of the other point clouds in the neighborhood of one to-be-determined point cloud and the one to-be-determined point cloud, or based on an interference point range determined for the one to-be-determined point cloud, determining whether the one to-be-determined point cloud is the interference point.

Systems, methods, software and techniques are disclosed for morphing a generic virtual boundary into a patient-specific virtual boundary for an anatomical model. The generic virtual boundary comprises one or more morphable faces. An intersection of the generic virtual boundary and the anatomical model is computed to define a cross-sectional contour of the anatomical model. One or more faces of the generic virtual boundary are morphed to conform to the cross-sectional contour of the anatomical model to produce the patient-specific virtual boundary. In some cases, the morphed faces are spaced apart from the cross-sectional contour by an offset distance that accounts for a geometric feature of a surgical tool.

Circuitry comprises ray tracing circuitry comprising a plurality of floating-point circuitries to perform floating-point processing operations to detect intersection between a virtual ray defined by a ray direction and a test region, the floating-point circuitries operating to a given precision to generate an output floating-point value comprising a significand and an exponent; in which at least some of the plurality of floating-point circuitries are configured to round using a predetermined directed rounding mode any denormal floating-point value generated by operation of that circuitry so as to output normal values, a denormal floating-point value being a floating-point value in which the significand comprises one or more leading zeroes.

An exemplary tissue volume detection system accesses, during a surgical procedure involving resecting a piece of tissue from a body, a plurality of depth datasets for the resected piece of tissue. Each of the plurality of depth datasets is captured as a different portion of a surface of the resected piece of tissue is presented to an imaging device by an instrument that holds the resected piece of tissue in a manner that sequentially presents the different portions of the surface to the imaging device. During the surgical procedure and based on the depth datasets, the system generates a three-dimensional (3D) occupancy map that includes a set of voxels identified to be occupied by the resected piece of tissue. Based on the 3D occupancy map and still during the surgical procedure, the system determines an estimated volume of the resected piece of tissue. Corresponding systems and methods are also disclosed.

Examples of methods for registering objects are described herein. In some examples, a method includes determining a set of overlap scores based on a set of orientations between a first bounding box of a three-dimensional (3D) object model and a second bounding box of a 3D scan of an object. In some examples, the method includes registering the 3D scan with the 3D object model based on the set of overlap scores.

A particular voxel is identified within a volume and a hash table is used to obtain volumetric data describing the particular voxel within the volume. Values of x-, y- and z-coordinates in the volume associated with the particular voxel are determined an index value associated with the particular voxel is determined according to a hashing algorithm, where the index value is determined from summing weighted values of the x-, y- and z-coordinates, and the weighted values are based on a variable value corresponding to a dimension of the volume. A particular entry is identified in the hash table based on the index value, where the particular entry includes volumetric data, and the volumetric data identifies, for the particular voxel, whether the particular voxel is occupied.