Visualizing Groundwater Flow Through Karst Limestone

Abstract

Water management is critical in Florida where freshwater is often rare or, in times of flooding, overabundant and seawater frequently contaminates available sources. Professor Michael Sukop from Florida International University, his student, Sadé Garcia, and Dr. Kevin Cunningham of the United States Geological Survey are developing techniques to better understand flow through aquifers in South Florida, which are vital sources of freshwater. 3D flow simulations of groundwater through Computed Tomography (CT) data from samples of karst limestone allowed them to more accurately predict the permeability values of the rock in their tests than existing laboratory measurement techniques. Researchers at TACC visualized these simulations by developing a rendering library which can render photo-realistic images using a path tracer built with Intel's Embree ray tracing kernels by intercepting calls to the OpenGL API. Using this software, they were able to generate significant improvements over native OpenGL rendering in existing tools and better illustrate the flow through thumb-sized holes in the limestone.