A new technique for interactive vector field visualization using large numbers of properly illuminated field lines is presented. Taking into account ambient, diffuse and specular reflection terms, as well as transparency and depth cueing, we employ a realistic shading model which significantly increases the quality and realism of the resulting images. While many graphics workstations offer hardware support for illuminating surface primitives, usually no means for an accurate shading of line primitives are provided. However, we show that proper illumination of lines can be implemented by exploiting the texture mapping capabilities of modern graphics hardware. In this way, high rendering performance with interactive frame rates can be achieved. We apply the technique to render large numbers of integral curves of a vector field. The impression of the resulting images can be further improved by a number of visual enhancements, like color coding or particle animation. We also describe methods for controlling the distribution of field lines in space. These methods enable us to use illuminated field lines for interactive exploration of vector fields.

A new technique for interactive vector field visualization using large numbers of properly illuminated stream lines is presented. Taking into account ambient, diffuse, and specular reflection terms as well as transparency, we employ a realistic shading model which significantly increases quality and realism of the resulting images. While many graphics workstations offer hardware support for illuminating surface primitives, usually no means for an accurate shading of line primitives are provided. However, we show that proper illumination of lines can be implemented by exploiting the texture mapping capabilities of modern graphics hardware. In this way high rendering performance with interactive frame rates can be achieved. We apply the technique to render large numbers of integral curves in a vector field. The impression of the resulting images can be further improved by making the curves partially transparent. We also describe methods for controlling the distribution of stream lines in space. These methods enable us to use illuminated stream lines within an interactive visualization environment.

Line Integral Convolution (LIC) is a powerful technique for generating striking images and animations from vector data. Introduced in 1993, the method has rapidly found many application areas, ranging from computer arts to scientific visualization. Based upon locally filtering an input texture along a curved stream line segment in a vector field, it is able to depict directional information at high spatial resolutions. We present a new method for computing LIC images. It employs simple box filter kernels only and minimizes the total number of stream lines to be computed. Thereby it reduces computational costs by an order of magnitude compared to the original algorithm. Our method utilizes fast, error-controlled numerical integrators. Decoupling the characteristic lengths in vector field grid, input texture and output image, it allows computation of filtered images at arbitrary resolution. This feature is of significance in computer animation as well as in scientific visualization, where it can be used to explore vector data by smoothly enlarging structure of details. We also present methods for improved texture animation, again employing box filter kernels only. To obtain an optimal motion effect, spatial decay of correlation between intensities