Abstract: In order to display a portion of a physical structure on a screen, an intermediate "pointer" memory is created. The addresses of memory words in the pointer memory correspond to the coordinates of pixels on a display screen, or in equivalent manner to the corresponding addresses of memory words in an image memory. The information loaded into the memory words of the pointer memory is representative of addresses in an "original" memory whose collection of memory words represents the structure under investigation. It is shown that by using the pointer memory it is possible for each voxel of the structure to establish quickly the coordinates of the position at which it ought to appear on the screen, and thus the address of the corresponding memory words in the pointer memory, by using previously-calculated memory addresses for the pointer memory.

Abstract: The 3D display device of the invention is based on an octree structure of data pertaining to an object to be displayed. This structure is memorized in a memory associated with a cache memory sending blocks of data on a bus to which a geometrical processor and an image-generating circuit are connected. The geometrical processor generates the visible part of another octree corresponding to a target universe which may be positioned in any way in relation to the object universe (a cube enclosing all the data to be represented).