HEV: High End Visualization

We have developed a virtual measurement and analysis laboratory in a 3D immersive virtual environment using a CAVE hardware configuration and a software visualization system. The software enables developers to create visualization applications that can run on both a desktop workstation and also in an immersive virtual environment such as the NIST CAVE.

Our High End Visualization (HEV) system is a flexible framework for visualization application creation. Our system design provides two main abstraction points: renderer display output and run-time renderer control. Abstracting renderer display output enables our system to run a single binary on both desktop workstations and immersive environments without change to the visualization application. Abstracting run-time renderer control enables our system to provide a large set of small, flexible tools that can be composed with input data to easily develop visualization applications.

HEV enables researchers to use visualization in a feedback loop to inform and drive model creation and simulation development. This loop starts by visualizing either simulation or experimental data based on a model. The HEV modular framework then applies interactive quantitative measurements in the Immersive Environment to refine the model.