Surface-based seeding for blood flow exploration

Abstract

Qualitative visual analysis of flow patterns in cerebral aneurysms is important for assessing the risk of rupture. According to current research, the flow patterns close to the aneurysm surface (e.g. impingement zone) provide a good insight. Streamlines can be easily interpreted and are commonly used for visualizing and exploring blood flow. However, standard ways of seeding these streamlines, e.g. manually oriented planes, are not suitable for explicit exploration of local near-wall flow. In this work, we introduce a novel surface-based seeding strategy. Our approach is flexibly applicable to measured as well as simulated data, so we present results for both. Informal domain expert feedback confirmed the suitability of our method to explore near-wall blood flow. The intuitive interaction scheme and the ease of use were appreciated. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2012.