Occlusion presents a major challenge in visualizing 3D ?ow and tensor ?elds using streamlines. Displaying too many streamlines creates a dense visualization ?lled with occluded structures, but displaying too few streams risks losing important features. We propose a new streamline exploration approach by visually manipulating the cluttered streamlines by pulling visible layers apart and revealing the hidden structures underneath. This paper presents a customized view-dependent deformation algorithm and an interactive visualization tool to minimize visual cluttering for visualizing 3D vector and tensor ?elds. The algorithm is able to maintain the overall integrity of the ?elds and expose previously hidden structures. Our system supports both mouse and direct-touch interactions to manipulate the viewing perspectives and visualize the streamlines in depth. By using a lens metaphor of different shapes to select the transition zone of the targeted area interactively, the users can move their focus and examine the vector or tensor ?eld freely.
Revised: August 23, 2016 |
Published: July 1, 2016
Citation
Tong X., J. Edwards, C. Chen, H. Shen, C. Johnson, and P.C. Wong. 2016.View-Dependent Streamline Deformation and Exploration.IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics 22, no. 7:1788-1801.PNNL-SA-111244.doi:10.1109/TVCG.2015.2502583