rick@hanauma (Richard Ottolini) (08/17/89)
You could store your data as sub-cubes and read in the necessary subset. A sub-cube would be one memory page or disk track large to improve efficiency, somewhere between 10 and 16 pixels along an edge (1K to 4K byte pages). This is analogous to "tiles" in 2-D screen buffers. Sub-cubes are useful when the next access is nearby, even when extracting planar sheets in arbitrary orientations. Careful if you use this method commercially because I've been warned it is patented. With memory prices falling again, 128 MB cores will be the norm in two or three years. Don't spent too much effort on efficiency if your volumes are smaller than this.