Selective 3D LIC Volume Rendering Based on Significance Map and Streamline Illumination Model

Abstract

Line Integral Convolution (LIC) is a promising method for visualizing 2 D dense flow fields. Several extensions of the method have been proposed for visualizing 3 D flow fields. However, volume rendering of 3 D LIC textures has been considered ineffective, because optical integration in depth tends to spoil the coherent structures along local streamlines. In this paper, we propose a selective volume rendering of 3 D LIC textures based on significance maps, which are derived by the cross-sectional vector field topology analysis, and a specific illumination model for 3D streamlines.