Benefit of visualization of statistical realizations of wavefields

My particular area of reserach deals with partial coherence and optical singularities. Since electromagnetism is the simplest force it would make sense to develop visual tools of analysis, e.g., creating moving images of wavefields and making fourier transforms to various field components. If the actions various interplays of U(1) in the optical field could be understood it very well may lead to insights into the workings of higher gauge symmetries.
I discussed this with a colleague of mine back in 05 and at the time we were looking for a way to model partial coherence (both spatial and temporal) with a product of lie groups. Having something like Doug's animations then would have been very helpful.