In scientific data visualization huge amounts of data are generated, which implies the task of analyzing these in an efficient way. This includes the reliable detection of important parts and a low expenditure of time and effort. This is especially important for the big-sized seismic volume datasets, that are required for the exploration of oil and gas deposits. Since the generated data is complex and a manual analysis is very time-intensive, a semi-automatic approach could on one hand reduce the time required for the analysis and on the other hand offer more flexibility, than a fully automatic approach. This master's thesis introduces an algorithm, which is capable of locating regions of interest in seismic volume data automatically by detecting anomalies in local histograms. Furthermore the results are visualized and a variety of tools for the exploration and interpretation of the detected regions are developed. The approach is evaluated by experiments with synthetic data and in interviews with domain experts on the basis of real-world data. Conclusively further improvements to integrate the algorithm into the seismic interpretation workflow are suggested.

Augmented reality is being present for many years. Through progress in technology smaller augmented reality glasses became possible. These new technologies allow many new ways of interaction and usage of augmented reality. This thesis is about the Microsoft HoloLens and its possiblities for consumers and industry. In the context of this thesis a new interactive and augmented application to measure the possiblities and limitations of the Microsoft HoloLens has been developed. The scene is an assembly szenario with a step by step instruction of building with Lego bricks. The evaluation showed that the HoloLens can already be used to assist in assembling scenarios and offers some advantages over other methods, although the glasses still have some flaws.

This thesis tests several methods and measures in pathtracing for selecting either the Line Space or the Bounding Volume Hierarchy data structure to make use of the advantages of both. The structures are defined locally around each object and each Line Space shaft contains one candidate ID each. All implementation is done as a C++ and OpenGL framework with compute shaders handling the pathtracing and Line Space generation. The measures include the probability distribution, the effect dependency, as well as a distance threshold and are tested against several different scenes. In most situations, the results show a noticeable increase in performance, partly only with minor visual differences, with the probability measure producing the highest quality images for a given performance. The fundamental problems of the Line Space concering the high memory consumption and a long generation time compared to the BVH still persist, despite the object local structure, a minimal amount of data per shaft and the compute shader implementation.

One of the greatest goals in computer graphics is the aesthetic representation of objects. In addition to conventional methods, another field focuses on non-photorealistic renderings. The so-called example-based rendering is an area where users can transfer their art style to a pre-computed 3D rendering, using a hand-painted template. There are some algorithms that already provide impressive results, but their problem is that most of these procedures count as offline methods and are not able to produce results in real-time. For this reason, this work show a method that satisfies this condition. In addition, the influence of the run-time reduction on the results is investigated. Requirements are defined, to which the method and its results are examined. Other methods in this field are referenced and compared with their results.

The market for virtual reality is rapidly evolving regarding its hardware components. Further applications are the result of this progress. In addition to the gaming market virtual reality offers further possibilities and advantages in research. That way this technology provides the investigation of perceptual phenomena. Therefore the present thesis aimed to examine the induced roelofs effect in a virtual environment and in reality in front of a computer screen. The roelofs effect describes a misperception that occurs if a persons midline and a target surrounding frame are offset, which results in a false localisation of the object. Thus the present study provides insight into the influence of a computer screen regarding this effect. Moreover, conclusions concerning the suitability of virtual reality in perceptual research are drawn. The results obtained by the virtual reality indicated a greater degree of perceptual distortion. Therefore the fixed frame of the computer screen can be assumed as an additional orientation.