Volume visualization is an important technique for the exploration of threedimensional complex data sets, such as the results of numerical analysis using the finite elements method. The efficient application of this technique to unstructured meshes has been an important area of research in the past few years. There are two basic methods to visualize volumetric data: surface extraction and direct volume rendering. In the first, the iso-surfaces of the scalar field are explicitly extracted. In the second, which is the one used in this work, scalar data are classified by a transfer function, which maps the scalar values to color and opacity, to be visualized. With the evolution of personal computer graphics cards (GPU), new techniques for volume visualization have been developed. The new algorithms take advantage of modern programmable graphics cards, whose processing power increases at a faster rate than the one observed in conventional processors (CPU). This work evaluates and compares two GPU- based algorithms for volume visualization of unstructured meshes: view- independent cell projection (VICP) and ray-tracing. In addition, two adaptations of the studied algorithms are proposed. For the cell projection algorithm, we propose a GPU data structure in order to eliminate the high costs of the CPU to GPU data transfer. For the raytracing algorithm, we propose to integrate the transfer function in the GPU, which increases the quality of the generated image and allows to interactively change the transfer function.