A practical visualization strategy for large-scale supernovae CFD simulations

Simulating the expansion of a Type II supernova using an adaptive computational fluid dynamics (CFD) engine yields a complex mixture of turbulent flow with dozens of physical properties. The dataset shown in this sketch was initially simulated on iVEC's EPIC supercomputer (a 9600 core Linux cluster) using FLASH [Fryxell et al. 2000] to model the thermonuclear explosion, and later post-processed using a novel integration technique to derive the radio frequency emission spectra of the expanding shock-wave front [Potter et al. 2011]. Model parameters have been chosen to simulate the asymmetric properties of the SN 1987A remnant [Potter et al. 2009].