Flow visualization techniques: a review

Abstract

Flow visualization is an approach focuses on methods to get information from the flow field datasets either in 2 or 3 dimensional. Researchers have presented many visualization techniques with similar goal, which is to enrich the information provided by the visualization. The differences between each technique cause misunderstanding to new researchers on the implementation, advantages, and their limitations. This paper will review and discuss some of the available techniques by classifying them based on the dimension and type of flow datasets. The type of flow is either steady or unsteady, and the dimensions are 2, 2.5, and 3 dimensional. The classification assists readers to identify and choose the appropriate method based on their requirement. This paper also highlights several important information related to the history and the foundation of flow visualization before reviewing the methods in details. Discussion and tables are included to enhance the readers understanding about the differences between reviewed methods.