WebGL-Enabled Remote Visualization of Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics Simulations

Abstract

Large-scale simulations are often performed on machines without the necessary graphics hardware for visualization. Transferring full resolution data to a suitable machine for visualization is impractical and undesirable. We investigate solutions to the remote visualization problem for large-scale Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) simulations. Previous remote visualization strategies for SPH perform rendering on the server side and send rendered images to the client viewer. These approaches suffer from delays due to network latency in sending entire images every frame and adversely affect interactive visual data analysis. WebGL enables hardware acceleration for rendering in the browser. We combine WebGL volume rendering rendering with data compression and intelligent streaming to provide a fast and flexible remote visualization solution for SPH simulations, which enables easier access to simulations for analysis and sharing of data.