Applications of Texture-Based Flow Visualization

Abstract Flow visualization is a classic sub-field of scientific visualization. The task of flow visualization algorithms is to depict vector data, i.e., data with magnitude and direction. An important category of flow visualization techniques makes use of textures in order to convey the properties of a vector field. Recently, several research advances have been made in this special category, of dense, texture-based techniques. We present the application of the most recent texture-based techniques to real world data from oceanography and meteorology, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) in the automotive industry, and medicine. We describe the motivations for using texture-based algorithms as well as the important recent advancements required for their successful incorporation into industry grade software. Our goal is to appeal to practitioners in the field interested in learning how these recent techniques can help them gain insight into problems that engineers and other professionals may be faced with on a daily basis. Many of these applications have only recently become possible.