Application of topology analysis in visualization of 2D dynamic vector fields

Flow is one of the most fundamental physical process in natural world. Flow visualization can give an intuitive view of flow fields and contribute to the observation and analysis of flow. Really flow fields are all dynamic while traditional visualization approaches are not able to reflect the trends of flows or the diversity inside them. Based on the research of Lagrangian Coherent Structures in Computational Fluid Dynamics, the concept of flow field topology is redefined, two typical 2D dynamic vector fields are selected for topology analysis, and the results are used to optimize the visual effects of geometric visualization. Experiments show that visualization of 2D dynamic vector fields based on topology analysis can extract the coherent structures of flows which are helpful to the comprehension of flow for researchers and description of characteristic difference inside flows.