In the past a lot of work has been invested in various aspects of an interactive visualization of CFD simulation data. This includes e.g. increasing the rendering speed and responsiveness of complex visualizations, using and enhancing multimodal user interfaces, and incorporating parallel approaches for an efficient extraction of flow properties and their respective visual representation. Still, only few projects combine the significant advances in these areas. In this paper, we describe our software framework ViSTA FlowLib, which facilitates merging current research results of various related areas. This is done by connecting dedicated sub-modules with clearly defined responsibilities through appropriate interfaces, whilst implementing sensible default behavior. ViSTA FlowLib combines efficient rendering techniques and a parallel computation of the visualization with intuitive multimodal user interfaces to allow for an interactive exploration of unsteady fluid flows in a virtual environment. Special care has been taken to achieve a high scalability in respect to computing power, projection technology, and input-output device availability.

In pure CFD visualization tools, some flow features are hard to visualize such as the properties of a local flow probe. Haptic rendering techniques offer an intuitive understanding and allow more detailed insights than the visual perception solely. In our application framework ViSTA FlowLib for the interactive visualization and exploration of unsteady flows in virtual environments we implemented haptic rendering techniques as an add-on feature for the commonly used visualization algorithms for scalar and vector fields. We extended the ideas of Pao and Lawrence and developed new promising techniques.

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