Framework and algorithms for illustrative visualizations of time-varying flows on unstructured meshes

• A framework for illustrative visualization of fluid simulation datasets is presented.
• New algorithms are developed for feature identification and matching in field data.
• Novel implementations are described for multiple illustrative visualization effects.

Photo- and physically realistic techniques are often insufficient for visualization of fluid flow simulations, especially for 3D and time-varying studies. Substantial research effort has been dedicated to the development of non-photorealistic and illustration-inspired visualization techniques for compact and intuitive presentation of such complex datasets. However, a great deal of work has been reproduced in this field, as many research groups have developed specialized visualization software. Additionally, interoperability between illustrative visualization software is limited due to diverse processing and rendering architectures employed in different studies. In this investigation, a framework for illustrative visualization is proposed, and implemented in MarmotViz, a ParaView plug-in, enabling its use on a variety of computing platforms with various data file formats and mesh geometries. Region-of-interest identification and feature-tracking algorithms incorporated into this tool are described. Implementations of multiple illustrative effect algorithms are also presented to demonstrate the use and flexibility of this framework. By providing an integrated framework for illustrative visualization of CFD data, MarmotViz can serve as a valuable asset for the interpretation of simulations of ever-growing scale.