Definition of a Multifield - Scientific Visualization: Uncertainty, Multifield, Biomedical, and Scalable Visualization - page 100

Chapter 10
Definition of a Multifield

Ingrid Hotz and Ronald Peikert

Abstract A challenge, visualization is often faced with, is the complex structure of
scientific data. Complexity can arise in various ways, from high dimensionalities of
domains and ranges, time series of measurements, ensemble simulations, to hetero-
geneous collections of data, such as combinations of measured and simulated data.
Many of these complexities can be subsumed under a concept of multifields, and
in fact, multifield visualization has been identified as one of the major current chal-
lenges in scientific visualization. In this chapter, we propose a multifield definition,
which will allow us a systematic approach to discussing related research.

10.1 Motivation

In its beginnings visualization has focused on single fields, meaning data representing
one specific quantity given over some domain. Thereby, the term field is mostly used
in context with some inherently continuous domain. Typical examples are scalar,
vector, tensor fields or also abstract data given over a two to four dimensional space-
time. Many corresponding visualization techniques have been developed solving
visualization problems related to one specific structure of the domain and data with
a specific characteristic.
In many real world applications the situation often looks very different. To solve
a problem often multiple fields, data from different sources, with different resolu-
tion and representing different quantities are common. E.g., in computational fluid
dynamics (CFD) simulations, the result is not just a single field but a collection of

( B )
Zuse Institute Berlin, Berlin, Germany
e-mail: [e-mail]
R. Peikert
ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
e-mail: [e-mail]

I. Hotz