AbstractThis paper reviews the theoretical and experimental evidence currently available to establish criteria to aid the experimenter who wishes to use streaming birefringence as a tool for studying fluid flow. Instrumental techniques are reviewed, and the possibilities for both qualitative and quantitative flow visualization by streaming birefringence in pure Newtonian liquids, colloidal suspensions and dilute and concentrated polymer solutions are discussed. Methods of reconstruction of the velocity and stress fields from birefringence data are outlined.