An Efficient Visualization Method of Two-Dimensional Vector Fields
Il-Hong Jung · Journal of Korea Multimedia Society · 2009
This paper presents the development of certain highly efficient and accurate method for computing tangent curves for two-dimensional vector fields. Unlike convention methods, such as Runge-Kutta, for computing tangent curves which produce only approximations, the method developed herein produces exact values on the tangent curves based on piecewise linear variation over a triangle in 2D. This new method assumes that the vector field is piecewise linearly defined over a triangle in 2D. It is also required to decompose the rectangular cell into two triangular cells. The critical points can be easily found by solving a simple linear system for each triangle. This method is to find exit points by producing a sequence of points on the curve with the computation of each subsequent point based on the previous. Because points on the tangent curves are calculated by the explicit solution for each triangle, this new method provides correct topologies in visualizing 2D vector fields.