State-of-the-Art Report 2002 in Flow Visualization

Flow visualization has been a very attractive field within visualization research for a long time already. Usually huge datasets need to be processed, which often consist of multi-variate data with a really large number of sample locations, often arranged in multiple time-steps. Recently, the ever increasing performance of computers again has become a driving factor for a new boom in flow visualization (FlowViz), especially in FlowViz based on additional computation such as feature extraction, vector field clustering, and topology extraction. In this state-of-the-art report, an attempt was made to (1) provide a useful categorization of FlowViz solutions, (2) give a survey-like overview about existing solutions, and (3) focus on recent work, especially in the field of FlowViz based on derived data. We give careful consideration as to how these topics are best organized for such a presentation. In separate sections we describe (a) direct FlowViz techniques such as using arrows, (b) FlowViz using integral object such as stream lines, (c) space-filling FlowViz, including, spot noise or line integral convolution, and (d) FlowViz based on derived data such as flow topology. Within those sections, the discussion of FlowViz literature is sub-structured accoring to the dimensionality of the flow data (from 2D to 3D).