User's Guide

Virtualwind   →   Monitor Data Visualization   →   Actors   →   Isosurface Vectors

Isosurface Vectors

This Actor generates an isosurface from a quantity and shows another vector quantity (described below) at points on this isosurface.

A vector quantity is a quantity that has not only a magnitude but also a direction in 3D space, such as the wind velocity. By using this Actor, for example, you can show the wind velocity at points in the Domain volume where their (shortest) distance to the terrain surface is 20 meters –– those points form an isosurface of 20m terrain elevation.

This Actor automatically extracts the minimum and maximum magnitude of the vector quantity at points on the isosurface. They are used as the default limits to color map the vectors (apply colors to the vectors). You can customize the minimum and maximum limits of the color map to highlight a particular magnitude range. You can also change the length of the vectors displayed on the screen. By default, it is set to 1.

The only difference between this Actor and the OrthoSliceVectors is that this Actor renders vectors on an isosurface whereas the OrthoSliceVectors Actor renders Actors on an orthoslice –– a slice plane of the Domain volume that is orthogonal to the Domain's X, Y, or Z axis. Therefore, to use this Actor, you need to specify the following to define the isosurface first:

  1. a quantity based on which to construct the isosurface
  2. a value of the quantity from which the isosurface can be extracted

The following is an example of the wind velocity vectors on the isosurface of 20m terrain elevation at a certain time spot.