Image-Based Streamline Generation and Rendering

Seeding streamlines in 3D flow fields without considering their projections in screen space can produce visually cluttered rendering results. Streamlines will overlap or intersect with each other in the output image, which makes it difficult for the user to perceive the underlying flow structure. This paper presents a method to control the seeding and generation of streamlines in image space to avoid visual cluttering and allow a more flexible exploration of flow fields. In our algorithm, 2D images with depth maps generated by a variety of visualization techniques can be used as input from which seeds are placed and streamlines are generated. The density and rendering styles of streamlines can be flexibly controlled based on various criteria to improve visual clarity. With our image space approach, it is straightforward to implement the level of detail rendering, depth peeling, and stylized rendering of streamlines to allow for more effective visualization of 3D flow fields.