Abstract:
A fundamental characteristic of fluid flow is that it causes mixing:
introduce a dye into a flow, and it will disperse. Mixing can be used as a
method to visualize and characterize flow. Because mixing is a process that
occurs over time, it is a 4D problem that presents a challenge for
computation, visualization, and analysis. Motivated by a mixing problem in
geophysics, we introduce a combination of methods to analyze, transform, and
finally visualize mixing in simulations of convection in a self-gravitating
3D spherical shell representing convection in the Earth's mantle.
Geophysicists use tools such as the finite element model CitcomS to simulate
convection, and introduce massless, passive tracers to model mixing. The
output of geophysical flow simulation is hard to analyze for domain experts
because of overall data size and complexity. In addition, information
overload and occlusion are problems when visualizing a whole-earth model. To
address the large size of the data, we rearrange the simulation data using
intelligent indexing for fast file access and efficient caching. To address
information overload and interpret mixing, we compute tracer concentration
statistics, which are used to characterize mixing in mantle convection
models. Our visualization uses a specially tailored version of Direct Volume
Rendering. The most important adjustment is the use of constant opacity.
Because of this special area of application, i. e. the rendering of a
spherical shell, many computations for volume rendering can be optimized.
These optimizations are essential to a smooth animation of the time-dependent
simulation data. Our results show how our system can be used to quickly
assess the simulation output and test hypotheses regarding Earth's mantle
convection. The integrated processing pipeline helps geoscientists to focus
on their main task of analyzing mantle homogenization.