Visualization of Input Parameters for Stream and Pathline Seeding

Uncertainty arises in all stages of the visualization pipeline. However, the majority of flow visualization applications convey no uncertainty information to the user. In tools where uncertainty is conveyed, the focus is generally on data, such as error that stems from numerical methods used to generate a simulation or on uncertainty associated with mapping visualization primitives to data. Our work is aimed at another source of uncertainty that associated with user-controlled input parameters. The navigation and stability analysis of user-parameters has received increasing attention recently. This work presents an investigation of this topic for flow visualization, specifically for three-dimensional streamline and pathline seeding. From a dynamical systems point of view, seeding can be formulated as a predictability problem based on an initial condition. Small perturbations in the initial value may result in large changes in the streamline in regions of high unpredictability. Analyzing this predictability quantifies the perturbation a trajectory is subjugated to by the flow. In other words, some predictions are less certain than others as a function of initial conditions. We introduce novel techniques to visualize important user input parameters such as streamline and pathline seeding position in both space and time, seeding rake position and orientation, and inter-seed spacing. The implementation is based on a metric which quantifies similarity between stream and pathlines. This is important for Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) engineers as, even with the variety of seeding strategies available, manual seeding using a rake is ubiquitous. We present methods to quantify and visualize the effects that changes in user-controlled input parameters have on the resulting stream and pathlines. We also present various visualizations to help CFD scientists to intuitively and effectively navigate this parameter space. The reaction from a domain expert in fluid dynamics is also reported. Keywords—Seeding Parameter Sensitivity, Uncertainty, Exploratorive Visualization.