Rendering Technique of Multi-layered Domain Boundaries and its Application to Fluid Flow in Porous Media Visualizations

Abstract

Current visualization techniques for computational fluid dynamics applications are sofisticated and work well in simple geometries. For complex geometries like pore spaces, multiple domain boundaries are obstructing the view and make the studying of fluid flow fields difficult. To overcome these deficiencies we use two-sided materials to render the domain boundaries. Using this technique it is possible to place the camera inside the domain and to have a non-obstructed view on the surrounding flow field without losing spatial reference to the domain boundaries. As a result a larger part of fluid flow visualization is visible. Two-sided material rendering was successfully applied to display still images with Blender Cycles renderer and in a virtual reality environment.