Combinatorial Vector Field Topology

Analysis and comparison of vector fields can be done via a segmentation of the flow field into regions of similar behavior and a subsequent extraction of the topological skeleton. Our goals are a numerically stable computation of the topological skeleton including the extraction and classification of all closed streamlines, and a simple but consistent simplification of the topological skeleton to allow for a multi-scale vector field analysis. To achieve these goals we are investigating the applicability of a combinatorial approach to vector field topology.