Abstract
Line integral convolution (LIC) is an effective and powerful technique for generating images from vector fields. In the 3D-LIC, it is very important to select an adequate region of interest (ROI) in the vector field. One way for specifying ROI is to use a surface defined in the vector field. The other way is to use a significance map that defines a ROI related values at each point in the vector field. To represent an anisotropic vector field around a vortex center in an understandable way, we introduced a time-oriented significance map. Our technique for specifying ROI is to use a passage-time for a mass-less particle to travel from near a vortex center to a pixel location. In our technique, what we call “restricted LIC technique (RLIC), ” we refer to the passage-time buffer before we start the convolution p.rocess at a pixel location. To confirm the effectiveness of our technique, we use an anisotropic swirl vector field and construct two types of significance maps, a distance-oriented map and a time-oriented map. We will show the difference in the resulting images are generated from these significance maps.
