New trends and directions in quantitative flow visualization methods

Abstract

Visualization, in its various forms, has always contributed to endeavors of art, science and engineering. Tapping a remarkable means of the human brain to grasp complexity, it has helped practitioners in all three endeavors achieve a better understanding of aesthetic, natural and technological objects, phenomena and processes. In science and engineering, wherever adequate visualization has been part of the creative process, it has yielded new insights into complex phenomena and catalyzed better descriptions and predictive models. Examples range from unmanned space exploration, weather satellites, astronomy, the impetus for the recent advances in our understanding of turbulence, complicated industrial processes to aerodynamics, and all kinds of in vivo and in vitro medical imaging applications. Usually, the nature of this understanding is qualitative; therefore, a subsequent quantitative measurement is essential for further progress. Quantitative single point measurement techniques such as hot wire anemometry or laser Doppler velocimetry are often used to obtain Eulerian velocity fields. These two techniques are typically limited to simultaneous sampling at a few spatial locations. In this respect, the global nature of the information contained in a single flow image invites one to develop quantitative methods to obtain multi-point spatial and temporal velocity or vorticity fields from such images. Indeed, substantial progress in many complex fields of science and technology has often awaited the development of adequate, quantitative-imaging methods capable of revealing global information about the phenomena understudy. In this talk, we focus on the strive to advance present state-of-the-art, quantitative imaging.