Coherent View-Dependent Streamlines for Understanding Blood Flow

The expressive visualization of (time-dependent) 3D blood flow along with the vessel wall is essential for understanding vascular diseases. However, the high complexity of the underlying flow data makes the exploration challenging. For the biomedical research, it is necessary to provide methods that allow for rapid flow comprehension, ideally by emphasizing relevant flow characteristics. Therefore, we present a fast approach that visualizes streamlines in a view-dependent way, while taking relevant flow features into consideration. For this, we adapt a well-established non-photorealistic rendering technique – suggestive contours – for surface meshes to streamline illustrations. The advantages of our approach are confirmed in an informal user feedback with domain experts, who were able to comprehend the overall flow behavior faster.