Functions Defining Arbitrary Meshes - A Flexible Interface between Numerical Data and Visualization Routines

Abstract

Most of the rendering tools in scientific visualization are restricted to special data structures which differ substantially from the data formats used in numerical applications. Trying to close this gap, we present an interface between data from numerical methods on general types of grids - like cuboidal, prismatic, simplicial, parametric, mixed, or hierarchical meshes - and general visualization routines. It is based on a procedural approach managing a collection of arbitrary elements and a set of functions describing each element type. No mapping of (an in general enormous amount of) numerical data onto new data structures is necessary- a user may use his own data structures and only has to provide this small set of procedures and functions. The visualization tools will then use these routines to access (temporarily and locally) data of interest, like information about a single element. Compared with display routines on a specialized data structure, this general interface does not produce much cpu overhead.