A Line Integral Convolution Method With Dynamically Determining Step Size and Interpolation Mode for Vector Field Visualization

The line integral convolution method can obtain a continuous and dense vector streamline texture. The traditional fixed step size gets larger texture noise, while the exact calculation step method (such as the Runge–Kutta method) is time-consuming. In the process of generating streamline texture, if using bilinear interpolation calculation, we can get the method of calculating the point vector value, and it is also time-consuming. To address the above-mentioned problems, the line integral convolution method for dynamically determining integral step size and interpolation mode is proposed. The effect of streamline drawing mainly depends on the size of the integration step and the interpolation mode. The method proposed in this paper gives the rules for determining the integration step size and interpolation mode according to the vector speed size and the angle between two vectors. The experimental results show that compared with the previous fixed step method and the bilinear interpolation method, the proposed method not only has faster computation speed but also clearer texture and stronger contrast.