Interactive Exploration and Analysis of Pathlines in Flow Data

The rapid development of large-scale scientific computing nowadays allows to inherently respect the unsteady character of natural phenomena in computational flow simulation. With this new trend to more regularly consider time-dependent flow scenarios, an according new need for advanced exploration and analysis solutions emerges. In this paper, we now present three new concepts in pathline analysis which further improve the abilities of analysis: a multi-step analysis which helps to save time and space needed for computation, direct pathline brushing, and the use of pre-configured view arrangements. We have found that a clever combination of these three concepts with already existing methods creates a very powerful tool for pathline analysis. A solution that follows the concept of coordinated multiple views (CMV) with iterative composite brushing enables a quick information drill-down. We illustrate the usefulness of this approach in the context of an example from the automotive industry