Abstract. An investigation into three dimensional fluid flow has been conducted which combines the use of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations with the experimental phenomenon of Streaming Birefringence. A versatile flow channel was designed and built for use in conjunction with a circular polariscope. The experimental liquid used was an aqueous solution of a dye, commercially known as Milling Yellow NGS with the addition of Sodium Chloride. To extract the flow fields, six image phase stepping photoelasticity was used over backward and forward steps, and flows around a cylinder, and full-field fringe data were obtained. This method needs laminar flow regimes and the Reynolds number of the flow was around 10. To allow direct comparisons of the CFD solutions with the optical results, a macro (UDF) was written to interpret the flow field results from a (FLUENT6) CFD simulation. This integrated the shear stresses across the flow field and banded the results into fringes. A good correlation between the simulated fringes and the shearstrain rate was obtained from these observations.