Image-based flow visualization
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In scientific visualization, image-based flow visualization is a technique proposed by Jarke van Wijk [1] to visualize flows, like the wind movement of a tornado. Compared with classical Integration like techniques it has the advantage of producing a whole image at every step. It is a method from the texture advection family.
Principle
The core idea is to create a noise texture on a regular grid and then bend this grid according to the flow (the vector field). The bended grid is then sampled at the original grid locations. Thus, the output is a version of the noise, that is displaced according to the flow.
The advantage of this approach is that it can be accelerated on modern graphics hardware, thus allowing for real-time or almost real-time simulation of 2D flow data.
References
- ^ van Wijk, Jack (2002). "Image Based Flow Visualization" (PDF). Proceedings ACM SIGGRAPH 2002, San Antonio, Texas.