Parallel interactive visualization of 3D mantle convection

In 3D simulation of thermal convective flows that change with time, each run can generate gigabytes of data. A client server visualization tool called pV3, running on a parallel computer, allows data exploration during computation instead of by postprocessing. While pV3 has been primarily used in the area of flow visualization designed with aerospace applications in mind, it has easily been applied in other flow visualization areas, such as geoscience. It has also been used for 3D wave propagation problems, including seismic waves and electromagnetics. More importantly, many of the concepts of pV3's client server interactive parallel visualization model could be used as a prototype for other application areas, such as enhanced MRI in medicine. The key to this kind of interactive visualization lies in being able to scale the compute part of the visualization as well as the application is scaled, while still minimizing network traffic. The article discusses the use of pV3 for investigating thermal convection in the interior of the Earth. pV3 was used to help understand details of the physics of variable viscosity and phase transitions in high Rayleigh number convection.