Choice of representation modes and color scales for visualization in Computational Fluid Dynamics

Abstract

Color visualization have become essential to analyze and communicate CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) results. To use them appropriately we should be conscious of their possibilities and limitations. Without such an awareness, we run the risk of being mislead by attractive images, void of information content or very difficult to interpret. This is the reason why it is necessary to notify on the visualization which representation mode and color scale have been used, otherwise it will be as meaningless as a measure without error bars, or a map without scale. We will propose some hints and rules to choose the most appropriate representation mode and color scale for a given problem. This paper will consider as example the case of two-dimensional scalar fields having zero-mean, which are often encountered in CFD.