Real-Time Advection and Volumetric Illumination for the Visualization of 3D Unsteady Flow

Abstract

This paper presents an interactive technique for the dense texture-based visualization of unsteady 3D flow, taking into account issues of computational efficiency and visual perception. High efficiency is achieved by a novel 3D GPU-based texture advection mechanism that implements logical 3D grid structures by physical memory in the form of 2D textures. This approach results in fast read and write access to physical memory, independent of GPU architecture. Slice-based direct volume rendering is used for the final display. A real-time computation of gradients is employed to achieve volume illumination. Perception-guided volume shading methods are included, such as halos, cool/warm shading, or color-based depth cueing. The problems of clutter and occlusion are addressed by supporting a volumetric importance function that enhances features of the flow and reduces visual complexity in less interesting regions.