Prototyping of visualization styles of 3D scalar fields using POV-Ray rendering engine

There is a persistent quest for novel methods of visualization in order to get insight into complex phenomena in scientific domains as various as physics, biomedicine or economics. Research teams involved achieved excellent results, however some problems with elaboration of novel visualization styles connected with flexibility of the software used and quality of the final images still persist. In the paper results of inspection of four visualization styles of 3D static scalar field employing POVRay ray-tracing engine are discussed, i.e. equipotential surface method using direct implementation of isosurface{} object, cellular trilinear interpolation approach, application of texture and eventually pseudo-particles design. All styles presented have been tested for hybrid visualizations and compared concerning computing time, informativeness and general appearance. It is shown in the work that Scene Description Language (SDL), domain specific language implemented in POV-Ray is flexible enough to use it as a tool for fast prototyping of novel visualization techniques. Visualizations discussed in the paper were computed using selected components of API of ScPovPlot3D, i.e. templates written in the SDL language.