Dynamic Line Integral Convolution for Visualizing Streamline Evolution.pdfVIP

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VISUALIZATION AND COMPUTER GRAPHICS, VOL. 9, NO. 3, JULY-SEPTEMBER 2003 273 Dynamic Line Integral Convolution for Visualizing Streamline Evolution Andreas Sundquist Abstract—The depiction of time-dependent vector fields is a central problem in scientific visualization. This article describes a technique for generating animations of such fields where the motion of the streamlines to be visualized is given by a second “motion” vector field. Each frame of our animation is a Line Integral Convolution of the original vector field with a time-varying input texture. The texture is evolved according to the associated motion vector field via an automatically adjusted set of random particles. We demonstrate this technique with examples from electromagnetism. Index Terms—Line integral convolution, time-dependent, time-varying, vector fields, field lines, streamlines, electromagnetism. 1 INTRODUCTION SINCE the introduction of the Line Integral Convolution Though this new technique is applicable to any time- (LIC) technique [3], it has been possible to depict static dependent vector field for which we can also compute the vector fields at an extraordinarily high spatial resolution. motion of the streamlines, we have developed the DLIC Traditionally, such fields had been depicted at relatively method specifically for visualizing time-dependent electro- low spatial resolution using icons on a coarse grid or by magnetic fields. After describing the operation of DLIC, we using a few streamlines or field lines selected to illustrate