多变量空间数据场可视化在计算流体力学、燃烧模拟、医学影像和气象仿真等科学领域有着重要的应用,其目的是分析和表达数据场中多个属性及其相互关系,通过可视界面呈现并探索复杂空间数据中的多变量演化规律.文中先介绍多变量三维空间数据场的概念及其与传统三维空间数据场的差异,再结合多变量空间数据场可视化流水线,从多变量三维空间数据场的数据表达与分析、多变量三维空间数据场的可视化与交互2个方面总结已有研究工作,并结合当前研究现状展望潜在的发展方向.
Multivariate spatial data visualization plays an important role in the fields of computing fluid dynamics, combustion simulation, medical imaging and meteorological simulation. It seeks to express and represent the multiple attributes as well as the relationships among them, and help users understand the characteristics and evolving patterns hidden in the datasets in an intuitive way. This paper introduces the concepts of multivariate data and differences from conventional spatial data first, and then clarifies the visualization pipeline of multivariate spatial datasets with a summary of existing works on two aspects: the representation and analysis of multivariate data fields, the visualization and interaction of multivariate data fields. Potential research topics are also discussed.