This page discusses the steady flow capabilities, which are enabled by setting the "Type", in the Basic Flow Parameters, to "Steady". Steady flow integration is performed with time held constant, by calculating curves that are tangent to the field direction at each point along their length. The resulting curves are called streamlines.
The following Appearance settings are unique to streamlines:
- Automatic scaling: If this is checked then there are two sliders available, controlling the smoothness and the typical length of the streamlines. The smoothness determines how frequently the flow lines are sampled along their length, and the value indicates the typical number of samples in traversing the data domain. The typical length indicates the number of crossings of the data domain of a flow line before the integration is stopped.
- If automatic scaling is un-checked, the user is presented with a slider (the number of samples per flow line), and a text box specifying the scale factor that is used to scale the vector field, resulting in longer or shorter field lines. These settings are useful when users require more explicit control over how streamlines are sampled and displayed, for example in creating single arrows (barbs) with the flow panel.
- The "Use display lists to cache flow geometry" checkbox can (in some cases) improve flow display performance, however it may cause display artifacts on some rendering platforms.
