Imaging Electromagnetic Field Using SMP Image

Abstract

This paper proposes a novel texture based method for visualization of electromagnetic fields. According to the characteristics of electric eddy current fields, a scalar potential is constructed to express the field on the surfaces. Then the potential is used in deducing an extension form of the Sinusoidal function Modulated Potential (SMP) image of general surface eddy current fields. The SMP Image can display the distribution of both the direction and amplitude of the field. The paper also presents a new algorithm based on hardware accelerated texture mapping. The algorithm could render the SMP image in real time and can be further used in dynamic visualization of time-varying electromagnetic field. The rendered dynamic images can reflect the variation of the field with space and time simultaneously. The only requirements for the method are that the vector field is distributed on surface and that its divergent is free, which makes the method suitable for visualization of general divergent-free vector field distributed on surface. © Springer-Verlag 2004.