Time analysis of regional structure of large-scale particle using an interactive visual system

Abstract

N-body numerical simulation is an important tool in astronomy. Scientists used this method to simulate the formation of structure of the universe, which is key to understanding how the universe formed. As research on this subject further develops, astronomers require a more precise method that enables expansion of the simulation and an increase in the number of simulation particles. However, retaining all temporal information is infeasible due to a lack of computer storage. In the circumstances, astronomers reserve temporal data at intervals, merging rough and baffling animations of universal evolution. In this study, we propose a deep-learning-assisted interpolation application to analyze the structure formation of the universe. First, we evaluate the feasibility of applying interpolation to generate an animation of the universal evolution through an experiment. Then, we demonstrate the superiority of deep convolutional neural network (DCNN) method by comparing its quality and performance with the actual results together with the results generated by other popular interpolation algorithms. In addition, we present PRSVis, an interactive visual analytics system that supports global volume rendering, local area magnification, and temporal animation generation. PRSVis allows users to visualize a global volume rendering, interactively select one cubic region from the rendering and intelligently produce a time-series animation of the high-resolution region using the deep-learning-assisted method. In summary, we propose an interactive visual system, integrated with the DCNN interpolation method that is validated through experiments, to help scientists easily understand the evolution of the particle region structure.