Fly-through Visualization for Porous Media

The image shown above is the medial axis of a Berea rock. A medial axis is a centrally-located skeleton that preserves the original topology and geometry of an object while remaining sensitive to surface features. With fly-through visualization, we would be able to gain a better understanding of the pore networks within different rocks, and clearly visualize the interconnections below a rock’s surface naked to the human eye. This type of visualization will aid in running computer-simulated experiments to improve oil and gas production.

In my research, I am creating these visualizations using python through Paraview. The biggest challenge we have come across with is trying to manipulate file formatting to output the image or video wanted for this specific visualization running sample data. Right now, we continue to work on finding the shortest path in a medial axis data for which the camera will fly-through for the final results. Similar visualizations were created last year using Matlab, however, the videos were a bit distorted and the camera was hard to follow as it traveled through the different pathways in the medial axis. I believe that Paraview will be able to output better videos as it is better equipped to create and edit various visualizations.