In this paper, we present an efficient visualization framework for the construction of streamlines, streamribbons and streamtubes on unstructured grids that combines the advantages of clustering methods and illuminating rendering techniques to generate a concise and informative depiction of complex flow structures. Given a 3D vector field, we first generate a number of streamlines covering the important regions based on an entropy measurement. A specialized version of the Runge-Kutta method has been developed to speed up the integration of flow data. Then we decompose the streamlines into different groups based on a categorization of vector field data, wherein the streamline pattern in each group is ensured to be coherent or nearly coherent. We have also derived for each group, we select a set of representative streamlines and render them in an illustrative manner to enhance depth cues and succinctly show local flow characteristics to construct streamribbons and streamtubes, respectively. The results demonstrate that our approach can generate a visualization that is relatively free of visual clutter while facilitating perception of salient information of complex 3D vector fields and effectively illustrate both directional and structural information of 3D vector fields. © 2006-2014 Asian Research Publishing Network (ARPN).