Bringing Topology-Based Flow Visualization to the Application Domain

The visualization community is currently witnessing strong advances in topologybased flow visualization research. Numerous algorithms have been proposed since the introduction of this class of approaches in 1989. Yet despite the many advances in the field, topology-based flow visualization methods have, until now, failed to penetrate industry. Application domain experts are still, in general, not using topological analysis and visualization in daily practice. We present a range of state-of-the art topology-based flow visualization methods such as vortex core line extraction, singularity and separatrix extraction, and periodic orbit extraction techniques, and apply them to real-world data sets. Applications include the visualization of engine simulation data such as in-cylinder flow, cooling jacket flow, as well as flow around a spinning missile. The novel application of periodic orbit extraction to the boundary surface of a cooling jacket is presented. Based on our experiences, we then describe what we believe needs to be done in order to bring topological flow visualization methods to industry-level software applications. We believe this discussion will inspire useful directions for future work.