Volumetric Rendering Techniques for the Display of Three-Dimensional Aerodynamic Flow Field Data

摘要

Navier-Stokes equations are so complex that their use by engineers was impractical until the advent of the modern computer but a new problem was created: Data saturation. The solution to the Navier-Stokes equations is comprised of thousands of numbers which makes it virtually impossible to conceptualize the situation within the flow field. To alleviate this problem, various computer graphics techniques have been used to provide images of flow fields. This thesis applies a relatively new graphics technique known as volumetric rendering to generate three-dimensional images of aerodynamic flow fields. Advantage of this technique are that it doesn't rely on geometric primitives to approximate a surface; and no a priori knowledge of the flow field's form is required to produce the final flow visualization image. To assess the utility of volumetric rendering in the field of computational fluid dynamics (CFD), a program known as VIPER is developed. This thesis outlines the requirements and specific algorithms for this program. Images of flow fields are presented and discussed along with program enhancements. VIPER's design also permits its use in applications other than CFD. (edc)