Interactive Comparison of Scalar Fields

Date: Friday, February 27, 2009
Time: 11:00am - 12:00pm
Location: Bldg. 50F, Room 1647

Speaker:
Hamish Carr
University College Dublin, Ireland

Abstract:

    Understanding fluid flow data, especially vortices, is still a
    challenging task. Sophisticated visualization tools help to gain
    insight. We present a novel approach for the interactive comparison
    of scalar fields using isosurfaces, and its application to fluid
    flow data sets. Features in two scalar fields are defined by largest
    contour segmentation after topological simplification. These
    features are matched using a volumetric similarity measure based on
    spatial overlap of individual features. The relationships defined by
    this similarity measure are ranked and presented in a thumbnail
    gallery of feature pairs and a graph representation showing all
    relationships between individual contours. Additionally, linked
    views of the contour trees are provided to ease navigation. The main
    render view shows the selected features overlapping each other.
    Thus, by displaying individual features and their relationships in a
    structured fashion, we enable exploratory visualization of
    correlations between similar structures in two scalar fields. We
    demonstrate the utility of our approach by applying it to a number
    of complex fluid flow data sets, where the emphasis is put on the
    comparison of vortex related scalar quantities.

Host of Seminar:
Gunther Weber