Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Helmholtz–Hodge decomposition-based 2D and 3D ocean surface current visualization for mesoscale eddy detection

  • Regular Paper
  • Published:
Journal of Visualization Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Ocean surface current (or ocean flow) visualization plays a significant role in the understanding of dynamical processes of ocean. It has been a hot research topic in both computer science and oceanography. Ocean surface current is a turbulent flow field mixing of multi-scale ocean dynamics such as large-scale ocean circulations (\(100\,\hbox {km}\sim\)), mesoscale eddies (10–\(100\,\hbox {km}\)), submesoscale processes (1–\(10\,\hbox {km}\)). Mesoscale eddies, which are strong but short-life movement relative to the large-scale ocean circulations, have great importance on the transportation of ocean water masses, momentum and energy. However, their detection and recognition, which are treated as the foundation of exploring their dynamical mechanisms, is still a challenging issue. For one thing, in the mixed ocean flow field, different ocean flows depended and influence with each other making existing methods difficult to identify among them. For another, mesoscale eddies are active signals on the ocean. They may change their forms and velocities at any time. This challenges existing works to deal with their boundary ambiguity and unremitting transitions. To solve these problems, this paper proposes a novel 2D and 3D ocean surface current visualization approach based on an amended Helmholtz–Hodge decomposition (HHD), which can be widely used for mesoscale eddy detection. In our method, HHD decomposes each mixed ocean flow field to two components: curl component and divergence component. Different ocean flows can be represented by these two components independently. In addition, to improve the performance of eddy identification and to reveal the 3D structure of ocean flows simultaneously, HHD transforms the 2D ocean flow field to 3D potential surfaces. Finally, comprehensive experiments are performed on both global and local ocean flow field (Black Sea and Mediterranean Sea) calculated from satellite maps of sea level anomaly to verify our method. Experimental results demonstrate the good effectiveness of our method.

Graphical abstract

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Bhatia H, Norgard G, Pascucci V, Bremer PT (2013) The Helmholtz–Hodge decomposition—a survey. IEEE Trans Vis Comput Graph 19(8):1386

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bi C, Yuan Y, Zhang J, Shi Y, Xiang Y, Wang Y, Zhang R (2018) Dynamic mode decomposition based video shot detection. IEEE Access 6:21397–21407

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bi C, Yuan Y, Zhang R, Xiang Y, Wang Y, Zhang J (2017) A dynamic mode decomposition based edge detection method for art images. IEEE Photon J 6(6):1–13

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chelton D, Schlax M, Samelson R, Early J (2011) Global satellite altimeter observations of nonlinear mesoscale eddies. Prog Oceanogr 91:167–216

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Faghmous JH, Frenger I, Yao Y, Warmka R, Lindell A, Kumar V (2015) A daily global mesoscale ocean eddy dataset from satellite altimetry. Sci Data 2:150028

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Isernfontanet J, Garcaladona E, Font J (2003) Identification of marine eddies from altimetric maps. J Atmos Ocean Technol 20(5):772–778

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ji P, Tian F, Liu S, Chen G (2016) 3D streamline visualization for irregular flow field data. J Comput Theor Nanosci 13(11):8909–8916

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Liang X, Zhang C, Matsuyama T (2014) Inlier estimation for moving camera motion segmentation. In: Proceedings of Asian conference on computer vision (ACCV). Springer, pp 352–367

  • Liang X, Zhang C, Matsuyama T (2015) A general inlier estimation for moving camera motion segmentation. IPSJ Trans Comput Vis Appl 7:163–174

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Liu Z, Du Y, Xu K (2015) An improved scheme of identifying loops using Lagrangian drifters. In: IEEE international conference on spatial data mining and geographical knowledge services, pp 125–128

  • Liu Z, James R, Scan M, Ziegeler B (2003) Ocean flow visualization in virtual environment. Technical Report, pp 1–49

  • Liu Z, Moorhead R II (2016) High-performance flow visualization for effective data analysis. J Flow Vis Image Process 23(1–2):41–57

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mkhinini N, Coimbra ALS, Stegner A, Arsouze T, TaupierLetage I, Branger K (2015) Longlived mesoscale eddies in the eastern Mediterranean Sea: analysis of 20 years of AVISO geostrophic velocities. J Geophys Res Oceans 119(12):8603–8626

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nencioli F, Dong C, Dickey T, Washburn L, Mcwilliams JC (2010) A vector geometry–based eddy detection algorithm and its application to a high-resolution numerical model product and high-frequency radar surface velocities in the southern california bight. J Atmos Ocean Technol 27(3):564

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Petersen MR, Williams SJ, Maltrud ME, Hecht MW, Hamann B (2013) A threedimensional eddy census of a highresolution global ocean simulation. J Geophys Res Oceans 118(4):1759–1774

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Petronetto F, Paiva A, Lage M, Tavares G, Lopes H, Lewiner T (2010) Meshless Helmholtz–Hodge decomposition. IEEE Trans Vis Comput Graph 16(2):338–349

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Polthier K, Preu E (2003) Identifying vector fields singularities using a discrete Hodge decomposition. In: Hege HC, Polthier K (eds) Visualization and mathematics III, Mathematics and Visualization. Springer, Berlin, pp 123–134

    Google Scholar 

  • Ren B, Li CF, Lin MC, Kim T, Hu SM (2013) Flow field modulation. IEEE Trans Vis Comput Graph 19(10):1708–19

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sadarjoen IA, Post FH (2000) Detection, quantification, and tracking of vortices using streamline geometry. Comput Graph 24(3):333–341

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Samsel F, Petersen M, Abram G, Turton TL, Rogers D, Ahrens J (2015) Visualization of ocean currents and eddies in a high-resolution global ocean-climate model. In: Proceedings of the international conference on high performance computing, networking, storage and analysis, vol 2, issue 3, pp 1–4

  • Souza JMAC, Montgut CDB, Traon PYL (2011) Comparison between three implementations of automatic identification algorithms for the quantification and characterization of mesoscale eddies in the South Atlantic Ocean. Ocean Sci 7(3):317–334

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sun Y (2006) Visualizing oceanic and atmospheric flows with streamline splatting. Proc SPIE Int Soc Opt Eng 6060:606002–606012

    Google Scholar 

  • Tandeo P, Chapron B, Ba S, Autret E, Fablet R (2013) Segmentation of mesoscale ocean surface dynamics using satellite SST and SSH observations. IEEE Trans Geosci Remote Sens 52(7):4227–4235

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tao J, Wang C, Shene CK, Kim SH (2014) A deformation framework for focus + context flow visualization. IEEE Trans Vis Comput Graph 20(1):42–55

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tong Y, Lombeyda S, Hirani A, Desbrum M (2003) Discrete multiscale vector field decomposition. In: ACM SIGRAPH, pp 27–31

  • Wiebel A (2004) Feature detection in vector fields using the Helmholtz–Hodge decomposition.  Diploma Thesis, University of Kaiserslautern, pp 1–61

  • Williams S, Petersen M, Bremer PT, Hecht M, Pascucci V, Ahrens J, Hlawitschka M, Hamann B (2011) Adaptive extraction and quantification of geophysical vortices. IEEE Trans Vis Comput Graph 17(12):2088–2095

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Xiu P, Chai F, Shi L, Xue H, Chao Y (2010) A census of eddy activities in the South China Sea during 1993–2007. J Geophys Res Atmos 115(C3):132–148

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yang L, Wang B, Zhang R, Zhou H, Wang R (2018) Analysis on location accuracy for the binocular stereo vision system. IEEE Photon J 10(1):1–16

    Google Scholar 

  • Zhang C, Liang X, Matsuyama T (2013) Mixed-motion segmentation using Helmholtz decomposition. IPSJ Trans Comput Vis Appl 5:55–59

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zhang C, Liu Z-L (2017) Prior-free dependent motion segmentation using Helmholtz–Hodge decomposition based object-motion oriented map. J Comput Sci Technol 32(3):520–535

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  • Zhang C, Wei H, Bi C, Liu Z (2018) Helmholtz–Hodge decomposition based 2D and 3D ocean flow visualization for mesoscale eddy detection. J Vis (ChinaVis 2018) 1–8

  • Zhang Z, Tian J, Bo Q, Wei Z, Ping C, Wu D, Wan X (2016) Observed 3D structure, generation, and dissipation of oceanic mesoscale eddies in the South China Sea. Sci Rep 6:24349

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zhang Z, Wang W, Qiu B (2014) Oceanic mass transport by mesoscale eddies. Science 345(6194):322–324

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zhang Z, Zhang Y, Wang W (2017) Three-compartment structure of subsurface-intensified mesoscale eddies in the ocean. J Geophys Res Oceans 122(3):1653–1664

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zheng Q, Tai CK, Hu J, Lin H, Zhang RH, Su FC, Yang X (2011) Satellite altimeter observations of nonlinear Rossby eddy–Kuroshio interaction at the Luzon Strait. J Oceanogr 67(4):365

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zhu Z, Ii RJM (1995) Extracting and visualizing ocean eddies in time-varying flow fields. In: Proceedings of the 7th international conference on flow visualization, pp 206–211

Download references

Acknowledgements

This work is supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (No. 2017YFC1404403) and National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 4180060167, 61503277, 61702360).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Marine Science and Technology, Tianjin University, Tianjin, China

    Cuicui Zhang & Hao Wei

  2. School of Computer Software, Tianjin University, Tianjin, China

    Chongke Bi

  3. College of Intelligence and Computing, Tianjin University, Tianjin, China

    Zhilei Liu

Authors
  1. Cuicui Zhang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Hao Wei
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Chongke Bi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Zhilei Liu
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Zhilei Liu.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Zhang, C., Wei, H., Bi, C. et al. Helmholtz–Hodge decomposition-based 2D and 3D ocean surface current visualization for mesoscale eddy detection. J Vis 22, 231–243 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12650-018-0534-y

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12650-018-0534-y

Keywords

Search

Navigation