Visualization of three-dimensional incompressible flows by quasi-two-dimensional divergence-free projections in arbitrary flow regions

A visualization of three-dimensional incompressible flows by divergence-free quasi-two-dimensional projections of the velocity field onto three coordinate planes is revisited. An alternative and more general way to compute the projections is proposed. The approach is based on the Chorin projection combined with a SIMPLE-like iteration. Compared to the previous methodology based on divergence-free Galerkin–Chebyshev bases, this technique, formulated in general curvilinear coordinates, is applicable to any flow region and allows for faster computations. To illustrate this visualization method, examples in Cartesian and spherical coordinates, as well as post-processing of experimental 3D-PTV data, are presented.