Three-Dimensional Flow Visualization Using Self-Organizing Map

Automatic flow visualization methods are being pursued. Flow visualization has a long history and many useful visualization methods have been developed. However, because of the growing scale of computer simulations, flow visualization tends to be a routine process and various flow visualizations are difficult to apply with the limitation of computer cost. We have been developing automatic visualization method including all flow features in one shot of the image using Self-Organizing Map (SOM). SOM has a function to reduce the dimensions and various flow functions are possibly degenerated down to two or three dimensions for visualization. In this paper, the present method is applied to the three dimensional flow and its validity and usefulness are discussed.