关键词: 等值线, 可视化, 有限单元法, 温度场

Abstract: A new simple method to obtain contour plot of temperature distribution in two dimensional scalar valued fields is presented in this paper.The parent element is divided into four sub-areas，and the natural coordinates of the vertices of the sub-areas and the shape functions are used to calculate the temperature at the vertices of corresponding sub-areas in real coordinate system.The temperature at the vertices can be utilized to determine whether an isothermal line goes through the sub-area or not.The sub-areas that an isothermal line goes through will be gradually subdivided into smaller and smaller sub-areas until the sizes of the bounding rectangles of sub-areas in real coordinate system are small than or equal to that of a pixel.Theory analysis and examples illustrate that the suggested method is simple，accurate，and easily implemented.

Key words: contour, visualization, finite element method, temperature field