Design and implementation of geometric and texture-based flow visualization techniques

Usually, research related software consists of individual, isolated prototypes because researchers are interested in a small proof-of-concept application for demonstration. Here we present software developed for research purposes, but which has been included into a larger, commercial visualization system. We describe the design and implementation of a flow visualization subsystem within the framework of a software package capable of modeling, simulation, and visualization of CFD simulation data. Our flow visualization subsystem provides several research related geometric and texture-based visualization techniques. As a result, we are able to combine visualization options in new ways that typical research prototypes cannot. Here we describe some of our design and implementation decisions and outline the resulting advantages and disadvantages.