Quantitative flow visualization: Toward a comprehensive flow diagnostic tool

Quantitative flow visualization has many roots and has taken several approaches. The advent of digital image processing has made it possible to practically extract useful information from every kind of flow image. In a direct approach, the image intensity or color (wavelength or frequency) can be used as an indication of concentration, density and temperature fields or gradients of these scalar fields in the flow (Merzkirch, 1987). For whole-field velocity measurement, the method of choice by experimental fluid mechanicians has been the technique of Particle Image Velocimetry (DPIV). This paper presents a novel approach to extend the DPIV technique from a planar method to a full three-dimensional volume mapping technique useful in both engineering and biological applications.