"The purpose of computing is insight, not numbers." [8]
Due to the rise of computational science [15], many of today's computational efforts produce enormous amounts of data. Humans are not capable of processing such quantities of numbers. This presents a new crisis: how can we produce insight rather then just numbers? [9] Visualization takes advantage of the highly developed human visual system. The human visual system is a massively parallel system that is an integral part of everyday life. Visualization works under the premise that data can best be translated to human insight by being cast as pictures. [9]
Scientific visualization is the use of data-driven computer graphics to aid in the understanding of scientific information. [15]. However, scientific visualization is more than just computer graphics. It is the process of selecting and combining appropriate graphical representations and packaging this information in understandable presentations. [15]
Given the benefits of scientific visualization, it's not surprising that many scientists are exploring all the different ways that they can visualize their data. With the advent of the CAVE, which was designed specifically with scientific applications in mind, additional opportunities have surfaced. The use of virtual reality facilitates more natural interaction techniques than are found on the desktop.[11][10][1] In addition, virtual reality enhances 3D understanding by allowing viewer-centered head-tracking perspective and stereopsis. Virtual reality also facilitates multisensory interfaces. These multisensory interfaces can strongly reinforce the visual illusions being presented. [9]
However, visualization is hard work [9]. It's hard enough to get visualization applications developed, let alone worry about portability and reusability issues. As a result, many of these issues have been overlooked in the past. This work takes a look at some of these issues and attempts to take a step in resolving them.