VARIAN is a series of surreal perspectives on and inside of everyday subjects.

Computer graphics, in most cases anyway, don’t concern themselves with material, substance or volume. The only component that matters is the surface and its properties. Because of how light interacts with opaque surfaces, mainly being either absorbed or reflected, this simplification makes sense for most cases.

There are two notable exceptions, that do consider the volume underneath the surface: Rendering translucent objects (tinting and refracting light, eg. glass or water), and subsurface scattering (light transport through materials like skin, eg. wax or clouds). True volumetric imaging has been pretty much limited to scientific and medical use cases (like CT/MRI scans, geological surveys) or highly complex simulations, be it in engineering or for visual effects.

VARIAN combines volumetric data, signed distance fields and traditional 3D surface geometry to render arbitrary cross-sections through scenes and objects.