Hi, Im quite new to Houdini but have worked in interactive visualization for a long time with things like medical data visualization before.
I would like to do similar work in houdini but I don't see native support for reading things like raw 3d volumes or raycasting the density and then apply a transfer function.
I assume I can get in the data by reading it raw in some way or by using python or even converting to 2d slices outside of H first if needed.

But, how do I control the raycast against the volume? In OpenGL/glsl I would do a very simple front to back alpha-composite using a transfer function for coloring but using Mantra it would be nice to get some extra benefits of pathtracing…

What could be viable approaches? What do people do?

Ok, FYI, I have gotten a meidcal data volume to render by importing an image sequence using a cop2 network and then creating a volume ramp and regular basic smoke… Have to fiddle around some more to get what I want but seem to be on the right path.

Hey filipw, did you manage to solve your task? I am learning how to do that too.