Dear all,
If the OP does not mind, I would like to expand the discussion beyond colour scheme choices and touch upon more realistic visualization of a dynamically evolving fluid surface. I think with the ray tracing and appropriate material textures it should be possible to produce excellent images and animations, but I am a bit too noob with 3D graphics to get things done right I think.
I attach a link to .vtp file with an interesting-looking air-water interface surface from a hydraulic jump simulation. After playing around with the settings, I was able to produce the attached image with the OSP raytracer. I think it looks pretty cool, but it doesn’t really look like water, more like goo :).
Maybe people would be interested in trying to produce something better, and we can together arrive to a good recipe for these type of visualizations, which I think are in high demand. An example of how things could look can be found in the videos here
LINK TO MOVIES