Flow Map Processing by Space-Time Deformation.

In Flow Visualization, the consideration of flow maps instead of velocity fields has recently moved into the focus of research. We present an approach to transforming standard techniques in vector field processing – like smoothing, modeling, deformation – to flow maps. This requires a solution to the fundamental problem that – contrary to vector fields – a specific modification of the flow map is, in general, not a flow map anymore. We introduce a concept that enables the modification of discrete sampling of a flow map while enforcing the flow map properties. Based on this, we present approaches for flow map deformation that are applied to a 2D time-dependent flow field.