Seed Point Selection through Equal Line Integral of Magnetic Field Intensity Algorithm for Visualization of Geomagnetic Field

Drawing the magnetic lines as streamlines is a general method of visualizing geomagnetic field. A key factor to evaluate the effect of the geomagnetic field visualization is whether the space distribution of geomagnetic field lines is consistent with that of magnetic field intensity, while the distribution of geomagnetic field lines is determined by seed point selection. The traditional algorithms that select seed points with uniform angles on magnetic meridian circles cannot objectively reflect the space distributions of magnetic field intensity. This paper proposes an algorithm of selecting seed points with equal line integral of magnetic field intensity. The algorithm is applied to draw the geomagnetic field lines with the data from T96 model and IGRF model. The redundant magnetic field lines existing in the result are removed. Statistical analysis and comparison between the space distribution of magnetic field lines and the geomagnetic field intensity reveals that this algorithm can effectively visualize the geomagnetic field.