PLIC: bridging the gap between streamlines and LIC
Vivek Kumar Verma, David Peter Kao, Alex Pang · 1999
This paper lays the groundwork for comparing flow visualizations using streamlines and line integral convolution (LIC). Our approach is to identify and define relevant parameters in each of these flow visualization techniques. Mapping strategies are then designed to generate LIC-like images from streamlines and streamline-like images from LIC. The result is a technique which we call pseudo-LIC or PLIC. The main contribution being reported in this paper is a methodology for flexibly generating flow visualizations that span the spectrum of streamline-like to LIC-like. Among the advantages are: performance speedups over LIC, applicability to time varying data sets, and variable-speed animation. Key Words and Phrases: unsteady flow, variable speed animation, jitter, texture mapping, comparative visualization. 1