RESEARCH ON PC-BASED STREAMLINE VISUALIZATION ON LARGE UNSTRUCTURED GRIDS

Presented in this paper are two PC based streamline visualization methods for large unstructured grids: the memory mapped file method （MMFM） and the multithread out of core method （MTOM）. Large unstructured grids are spatially partitioned in an octree, and data structures are also discussed. MMFM constructs streamlines like in core methods through mapping large data file into virtual RAM, and reduces page faults by organizing data in spatial blocks. MTOM implements out of core streamline construction with multithread technology. MTOM can overlap CPU and I/O, and can process in parallel with multiple CPUs. The test results show that the MMFM or the MTOM can make streamline visualization on large unstructured grids with less memory, and has more efficient performance.