An Enriched Visualization Framework for Multidisciplinary Data Analysis

Contents

One of grand challenges in the Computational Aerosciences Project of the High Performance Computing and Communications Program involves performing multidisciplinary simulations in which two or more phenomena, such as aerodynamics and structures, are strongly coupled. This challenge has, in turn, given visualization researchers the challenge of developing methods to represent the interaction between disciplines effectively. Visual representations are useful only if they augment comprehension of the increasing amounts of data being generated by these simulations. Visualization researchers must ensure that these representations are useful and do not contain information that might lead to misinterpretation. This paper presents the development of a visualization tool to aid scientists in the analysis of multidisciplinary simulations. The authors define a visualization framework that supports the production of effective visualizations by adapting the visual representations to the goal of the scientist, the type of data to be displayed, software and hardware considerations, and rules of visual perception.