An extensible interactive visualization framework for the virtual windtunnel

The paper describes a software framework for the virtual windtunnel, a virtual reality based, near real time interactive system for scientific visualization. This framework meets the requirements of extensibility, interactive performance, and interface independence. Creating a framework which meets all of these requirements presented a major challenge. We describe this framework´s object oriented structure and process architecture, including interprocess communications and control. Device independence of both the command and display structures are developed, providing the ability to use a wide variety of interface hardware options. The resulting framework supports a high performance visualization environment which can be easily extended to new capabilities as desired