Animating Flowfields: Rendering of Oriented Line Integral Convolution

Line Integral Convolution (LIC) is a common approach for the visualization of vector fields. It is well suited for visualizing the direction of a flow field, but it gives no information about the orientation of the underlying vectors. We introduce Oriented Line Integral Convolution (OLIC), where direction as well as orientation are encoded within the resulting image. This is achieved by using a low frequency input texture and a ramp like (unisotropic) convolution kernel. This method can be animated, whereby the computation of so called pixel traces fastens the calculation process. In the result section various OLICs using simple and real-world vector fields are shown. 1 Introduction The visualization of vector fields, e.g., flow visualization or visualization of dynamical systems, is an important part of scientific visualization. Displaying small vectors at discrete points within the vector field (so-called arrow plots) only gives a rough overview of the underlying dynamics. Some of t..