Scientific Visualization The Application Visualization System: A Computational Environment for Scientific Visualization Craig Upson, Thomas Faulhaber, Jr., David Kamins, David Laidlaw, David Schlcgel, Jeffrey Vroom, Robert Gurwitz, Andries van Dam Stellar Computer In this article we describe a software system for developing interactive scientific visualization applica- tions quickly, with a minimum of programming effort. This Application Visualization System (AVS) is an appli- cation framework targeted at scientists and engineers. The goal of the system is to make applications that combine interactive graphics and high computational requirements easier to develop for both programmers and nonprogrammers. AVS is designed around the con- cept of software building blocks, or modules, that can be interconnected to form visualization applications. AVS allows flow networks of existing modules to be constructed using a direct-manipulation user interface, and it automatically generates a simple user interface to each module. I- I hfJ inc:reasing p3ve1 of sLl~~c!~c:orn~,ut~~~s and graphics systems has made it possible for the scientific: and engineering communities to gain ne\v insight into their disciplines. In areas as diverse as fluid dynamics, coml)uter-aidecl engineerin g. molec:ular modeling, and geophvsics, researchers are attempting to apply these powerful systems to analyze and view their data. Kecent works in the literature have described both problems and techniques in this area of scientific: \.isualization.’ ’ Background Both the size of’ scientific: and engineering ~)wbtems and the quantity of data generated present a large chal- lenge to researchers: namely, how to understand the results of their computations. Solving these problems interactively is essential’ and requires significant cum- putation and graphics power. While graphics and corn puting hardware have made rapid strides in the last f’elz years. the software available to researchers has not kept