In my experience, it is much easier to apply enhanced rendering to CT modalities (e.g. MDCT) than MRI modalities. The image intensity of different tissues is calibrated for CT, while it is relative to MRI. These advanced renderings have a huge number of adjustable parameters, and this makes a generalized approach difficult. Therefore, while I certainly think one could develop a “cinematic” rendering module for Slicer (given substantial developer resources), it would only serve part of the user community.
A very simple but robust approach that can make both CT and MRI renderings look fancy is to use MatCaps. These are very easy to implement in a volume renderer and have very few parameters to adjust. This figure is generated with MRIcroGL using the MatCaps that come with Blender. I think these could be easily adapted to Slicer. While many MatCaps are a bit gaudy for my tastes, I do think they can help people visualize depth better than traditional volume rendering in some situations.
