To explore the distribution and diffusion of pollutants in lakes, the volume rendering technique was used to express the lake water quality model in three dimensions. Due to the narrow distribution ranges and small spatial differences of the scalar field of the lake water quality mode, the perspective expression of subtle differences in the volume rendering process becomes important but difficult. In view of the foregoing case, this paper proposed transfer functions (TFs) in volume rendering of lake water quality considering the frequency distribution. The frequency distribution of the lake water quality scalar field was counted, the voxel ratios and the coloring probabilities of the frequency ranges were calculated, and then the voxel values were effectively mapped to colors and transparencies according to the coloring probabilities, to realize the refined expression of the differences in the spatial distribution of lake water quality. Experiments showed that the perspective expression of the subtle differences of lake (especially shallow lakes) water quality was improved using this method, which is conducive to analyzing the characteristics and changing laws of lake water quality model.