Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!ut-emx!emx.utexas.edu!benedict From: benedict@chaos.utexas.edu (Thomas Benedict) Newsgroups: comp.graphics.visualization Subject: Look at it this way... Message-ID: Date: 13 Nov 90 15:10:59 GMT Sender: news@ut-emx.uucp Distribution: comp.graphics.visualization Organization: Center for Nonlinear Dynamics, University of Texas at Austin Lines: 37 I was talking with a colleague who had an interesting problem. He has a four-dimensional data set he needs to view. The data set consists of an X Y grid of around 80 elements on a side. At each gridpoint there are 64 elements, each corresponding to a certain doppler shift toward and away from the viewer. At each (x, y, doppler) is a measurement of flux. So the data looks something like this: |<----- 80 ---->| / ____ / /___/| 32 units of speed toward us - +--+--+-- ... --+--+ |____|/ ^ | | | | | |____|/ | +--+--+-- --+--+ | | | | | | | \ ... 80 . . \ |____|/ 0 speed toward us | . . |____|/ V | | | | | | | - +--+--+-- --+--+ ... |____|/ 32 units of speed away from us |____|/ All of this data was taken from the center of a spiral galaxy. What he needs to get from this data is an idea of the gas flow at the center of this galaxy. I've thought of a couple of ways of looking at the data, but none are quite satisfactory. A perfect way of looking at it would be a three dimensional vector field for the gas, but I don't think that can be done with just this data. If we had another viewer at a position 90 degrees away from our own we might be able to, but alas warp speed space travel is still restricted to the movies. If you can think of a way of looking at this, please mail it to me. I don't often read this newsgroup and might miss a reply. Tom Benedict benedict@chaos.utexas.edu