Topological Visualisation Techniques for Volume Multifield Data

Abstract

This survey paper provides an overview of topological visualisation techniques for scalar data sets. Topological algorithms are used to reduce scalar fields to a skeleton by mapping critical changes in the topology to the vertices of graph structures. These can be visualised using graph drawing techniques or used as a method of seeding meshes of distinct objects existing in the data. Many techniques are discussed in detail, beginning with a review of algorithms working on scalar fields defined with a single variable, and then generalised to multivariate and temporal data. The survey is completed with a discussion of methods of presenting data in higher dimensions.