FlowNet: A Deep Learning Framework for Clustering and Selection of Streamlines and Stream Surfaces

For effective flow visualization, identifying representative flow lines or surfaces is an important problem which has been studied. However, no work can solve the problem for both lines and surfaces. In this paper, we present FlowNet, a single deep learning framework for clustering and selection of streamlines and stream surfaces. Given a collection of streamlines or stream surfaces generated from a flow field data set, our approach converts them into binary volumes and then employs an autoencoder to learn their respective latent feature descriptors. These descriptors are used to reconstruct binary volumes for error estimation and network training. Once converged, the feature descriptors can well represent flow lines or surfaces in the latent space. We perform dimensionality reduction of these feature descriptors and cluster the projection results accordingly. This leads to a visual interface for exploring the collection of flow lines or surfaces via clustering, filtering, and selection of representatives. Intuitive user interactions are provided for visual reasoning of the collection with ease. We validate and explain our deep learning framework from multiple perspectives, demonstrate the effectiveness of FlowNet using several flow field data sets of different characteristics, and compare our approach against state-of-the-art streamline and stream surface selection algorithms.