Topological Landscape Ensembles for Visualization of Scalar-Valued Functions

Abstract

Visual representation techniques enable perception and exploration of scientific data. Following the topological landscapes metaphor ofWeber et al., we provide a new algorithm for visualizing scalar functions defined on simply connected domains of arbitrary dimension. For a potentially high dimensional scalar field, our algorithm produces a collection of, in some sense complete, two-dimensional terrain models whose contour trees and corresponding topological persistences are identical to those of the input scalar field. The algorithm exactly preserves the volume of each region corresponding to an arc in the contour tree. We also introduce an efficiently computable metric on terrain models we generate. Based on this metric, we develop a tool that can help the users to explore the space of possible terrain models.