problem with volume viewer in image processing toolbox

I was working on a project using the image processing toolbox and i have to use the volume viewer app. But when i try to run it just a black screen is being displayed. It is able to read the input but couldn't display the output. Can anyone help me with this?

[Star Strider]

The only ‘VolumeViewer’ App I can find was last updated on 06 May 2014. MATLAB transitioned from ‘HG1’ to ‘HG2’ in R2014b. This ‘broke’ many imaging applications that were not subsequently updated.

What version of MATLAB are you using?

[Walter Roberson]

volumeViewer with lower-case 'v' is new in R2017a

[Star Strider]

Interesting. I never realized it existed.

Answer 1

[Alex Taylor]

The behavior being described here is most likely an OpenGL issue. As Grgschmtz points out, the volumeViewer heavily uses hardware OpenGL for doing the rendering. On certain graphics hardware, particularly Intel Integrated Graphics, there can be insufficient OpenGL support, so you may see strange artifacts or all black rendering. As a diagnostic, try:

iptsetpref('VolumeViewerUseHardware',false); 
volumeViewer; 
iptsetpref('VolumeViewerUseHardware',true)

If this resolves the issue, then you are definitely experiencing an OpenGL rendering issue related to the app. Because using the preference above results in slowering rendering and disables certain features of the app, the best thing is to attempt to update the drivers for your graphics hardware to see if that resolves the issue. To do this, execute:

opengl info

To get information about the vendor of your graphics hardware. Go to their website and follow directions for updating drivers. Restart MATLAB. Now try the volumeViewer again to see if rendering is improved. If it is not, then the best course is to leave the preference for 'VolumeViewerUseHardware' set to false.

Answer 2

[Grgschmtz]

I had the same problem today. I think it is related to Matlab failing when trying to use the graphics hardware acceleration. At least switching off hardware acceleration made it work for me:

iptsetpref('VolumeViewerUseHardware',false); volumeViewer;

Matlab documentation says that some functions of the app may not be available and that it runs slower.