Topology-driven streamline seeding for 2D vector field visualization

This paper presents a novel method of streamline placement for 2D vector field. In this method, the topological skeleton of underlying field is firstly extracted and used as initial streamlines. Initial streamlines segment the field into topological areas. Additional streamlines are then seeded at the center of topological areas in a recursive way, until there is no any valid empty area. To implement this method efficiently, a boundary extending of vector field is used to simplify the extraction of topology. And a virtual control grid superposed on the field is used to model topological areas approximately, and control the density of streamlines as well as their length. Our method focuses on the topology of vector field while keeping streamlines evenly-spaced as possible. But it can still run without the initial topological skeleton. Test results show that our method can achieve high quality of streamline placement.