OSPRay Studio: Enabling Multi-Workflow Visualizations with OSPRay

Abstract

There are a number of established production ready scientific visualization tools in the field today including ParaView [Aya15], VisIt [CBW*11] and EnSight [Ans]. However, often they come with well defined core feature sets, established visual appearance characteristics, and steep learning curves – especially for software developers. They have vast differences with other rendering applications such as Blender or Maya (known for their high-quality rendering and 3D content creation uses) in terms of design and features, and have over time become monolithic in nature with difficult to customize workflows [UFK*89]. As such a multi-purpose visualization solution for Scientific, Product, Architectural and Medical Visualization is hard to find. This is a gap we identify; and with this paper we present the idea of a minimal application called OSPRay Studio, with a flexible design to support high-quality physically-based rendering and scientific visualization workflows. We will describe the motivation, design philosophy, features, targeted use-cases and real-world applications along with future opportunities for this application.