A scientific visualization workbench

A system for visualization of data from supercomputer simulations has been developed. The scientific visualization workbench, as it is called, is based on an industry standard workstation (a Sun 3/160C), the NeWS window system, and a video/graphics add-in card, which is supported by NeWS. Also involved is a frame buffer attached to a 48-Mb/s Cray channel and a video link from the frame buffer to the Sun workstation. Computation and graphics preparation are performed on the Cray under the control of a NeWS client program. Images are rasterized and sent to the workstation at the rate of 25 frame/s. The workbench permits the scientist to converse with applications running on a Cray but still retain the convenience and flexibility of a personal workstation environment. The video link allows animated graphics images to be displayed on the workstation at a much higher rate than would be possible with a conventional network connection, i.e. Ethernet. Also, NeWS affords the convenience of a modern window system. Live video can be displayed in a window anywhere on the screen, while other windows may contain conventional text or graphics