A virtual environment for the exploration of diffusion and flow phenomena in complex geometries ?
With the development of high-performance computing techniques and the increase in availability of computer power, large and complex time dependent data sets are generated in simulations used in industrial and scientific applications. These data sets are not only large, but they also represent results of simulations of increasingly complex phenomena which often vary dynamically. In many cases, visual exploration of these complex data sets is one of the few options to analyze these data and to obtain further insight in the simulated phenomena. As a test case in the development of an immersive virtual exploration environment we have used data sets resulting from 3D simulations of diffusion and flow processes, and their impact on biological growth. We show that an immersive virtual environment such as the CAVE aids in the interactive exploration of the large scale and time dependent data sets that result from these simulations. In addition, the CAVE has found to be a suitable environment to compare shapes emerging in simulated biological growth processes with data sets obtained from CT scans of the actual objects.
virtual environments interactive data exploration simulation of flow and diffusion