Case study: hardware-accelerated selective LIC volume rendering

Line Integral Convolution (LIC) is a promising method for visualizing 2D dense flow fields. Direct extensions of the LIC method to 3D have not been considered very effective, because optical integration in viewing directions tends to spoil the coherent structures along 3D local streamlines. In our previous reports, we have proposed a selective approach to volume rendering of LIC solid texture using 3D significance map (S-map), derived from the characteristics of flow structures, and a specific illumination model for 3D streamlines. In this paper, we take full advantage of scalar volume rendering hardware, such as VolumePro, to realize a realtime 3D flow field visualization environment with the LIC volume rendering method.