Immersive Virtual Reality for Scientific Visualization

Immersive virtual reality (IVR) has the potential to be a powerful tool for the visualization of burgeoning scientific datasets and models. While IVR has been available for well over a decade, its use in scientific visualization is relatively new and many challenges remain before IVR can become a standard tool for the working scientist. In this presentation we provide a progress report and sketch a research agenda for the technology underlying IVR for scientific visualization. Among the interesting problem areas are how to do computational steering for exploration, how to use art-inspired visualization techniques for multi-valued data, and how to construct interaction techniques and metaphors for pleasant and efficient control of the environment. To illustrate our approaches to these issues, we will present specific examples of work from our lab, including immersive visualizations of arterial blood flow and of medical imaging.