Superellipsoid-based, real symmetric traceless tensor glyphs motivated by nematic liquid crystal alignment visualization
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Updated: Jul 19, 2026

High-Contrast and Fast Photorheological Switching of a Twist-Bend Nematic Liquid Crystal
Published on: October 31, 2019
T J Jankun-Kelly1, Ketan Mehta
1Department of Computer Science and Engineering, James Worth Bagley College of Engineering, Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, MS 39762, USA. tjk@acm.org
Abstract:
A glyph-based method for visualizing the nematic liquid crystal alignment tensor is introduced. Unlike previous approaches, the glyph is based upon physically-linked metrics, not offsets of the eigenvalues. These metrics, combined with a set of superellipsoid shapes, communicate both the strength of the crystal's uniaxial alignment and the amount of biaxiality. With small modifications, our approach can visualize any real symmetric traceless tensor.
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