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Bat Flight Visualization

When bats fly, their wings undergo large amplitude motions and deformations. As a consequence, simulating and visualizing the way air flows around the bat is extremely complex, and biologists have yet to gain a full understanding of the aerodynamics and mechanics of bat flight. We present a method for simulating and visualizing air flow around a static bat wing geometry in the three-dimensional, immersive CAVE environment. This demonstration serves as proof-of-concept for simulating air flow around a time-varying geometry in order to understand the aerodynamic principles behind bat flight. By understanding the mechanics of bat flight, we hope to make discoveries in areas such as biomechanics and aerodynamics

Project status: Active

Funding

ITR: Visualization of Multi-valued Scientific Data: Applying Ideas from Art and Perceptual Psychology, National Science Foundation, $2,302,599, 9/2000 - 8/2005

ITR Collaborative Research: Perceptual Optimization for Data Visualization, National Science Foundation, $103,789, 9/2003 - 8/2006

ITR: Computational simulation, modeling, and visualization for understanding unsteady bioflows, National Science Foundation, $650,000, 10/2004 - 9/2009

Publications

Pivkin, I., Hueso, E., Weinstein, R., Laidlaw, D. H., Swartz, S., and Karniadakis, G. Simulation and Visualization of Air Flow Around Bat Wings During Flight. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Computational Science (2005), pp. 689-694. [ pdf ]

Hueso, E., Pivkin, I., Swartz, S., Laidlaw, D. H., Karniadakis, G., and Breuer, K. Visualization of Vortices in Simulated Airflow around Bat Wings During Flight. In Proceedings of the IEEE Visualization Conference Poster Compendium (Oct. 2004), p. 20. [ pdf ]

Weinstein, R., Hueso, E., Pivkin, I., Swartz, S., Laidlaw, D. H., Karniadakis, G., and Breuer, K. Simulation and Visualization of Flow Around Bat Wings During Flight. In Proceedings of the ACM Special Interest Group on Graphics and Interactive Techniques (SIGGRAPH) Conference Poster Session (Aug. 2004). [ pdf ]

Swartz, S., Bishop, K., Pivkin, I., Karniadakis, G., Laidlaw, D. H., Vote, E., and Keefe, D. 3D Kinematics of Flying Bats: Challenges of Complex Multidimensional Comparison. In Seventh International Congress on Vertebrate Morphology (Boca Raton, Florida, 2004).

Hueso, E. Visualizing Vortices in Simulated Air Flow around Bat Wings during Flight. Tech. Rep. CS-03-25, Master's Project, Computer Science Department, Brown University, Providence, RI, Dec. 2003. [ pdf ]

Weinstein, R., Pivkin, I., Swartz, S., Laidlaw, D. H., Karniadakis, G., and Breuer, K. Simulation and Visualization of Air Flow Around Bat Wings During Flight. Tech. Rep. CS-02-16, Brown University, Department of Computer Science, 2002. [ pdf ]