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.