VISUALIZATION: Effective Visualizations for Complex 3- and 4-Dimensional Flow Fields

Ohio State University Research Foundation -Do Not Use, Columbus OH

Investigators

Abstract

Despite many advances in the visualization community over the past decade, effective and efficient representations for three-dimensional flow fields are still elusive. Many techniques show promise, but do not represent a complete picture of the flow. This project consists of a systematic investigation of the current techniques, their advantages and disadvantages, research and analysis of combined techniques which complement each other, and research into new techniques. Cognitive analysis and user studies will be undertaken to investigate existing research. Many of these techniques, including those of the PIs, proposed a method of representing or rendering a flow field, with little selfexamination of the limitations towards garnering a true understanding of the flow field. Several of these techniques have obvious limitations, but present an improvement over the dearth of any good techniques for three-dimensional flow visualization. By combining several techniques appropriately, more improvements can be made. Are these improvements sufficient? What combinations work and which ones do not? These questions will be investigated and quantified in this research. Finally, we will ask: How can new techniques be developed that will overcome some of these limitations?Our subjective understanding of the field allows us to propose several avenues of investigation. These include an-isotropic volume renderings, embedded with flow differentiators; schematic texture algorithms for opaque and semi-transparent stream surfaces; level-of-detail models for representing the flow; multi-resolution representation of underlying features; and new representations that provide a more meaningful context for the flow. This research will greatly aid computational scientists across many disciplines: computational fluid dynamics scientists, environment scientists, atmospheric scientists, computational geological scientists and biomedical researchers. A primary component of their research is the investigation or simulation of natural phenomena. This phenomena is generally dynamic, leading to complex and interesting flow fields. For three-dimensional computations, effective tools to understand, represent and convey these flows are lacking. This research will provide a firm foundation for research in this area, as well as lead to new algorithms offering a much clearer representation for flows.