Combining Object Orientation and Dataflow Modeling in the VISSION Simulation System

Abstract

Scientific visualization and simulation is mostly addressed by frameworks using data and event flow mechanism to support simulation specification, control, and interactivity. Even though object orientation powerfully and elegantly models many application domains, integration of object-oriented libraries in such systems remains a difficult task. The elegance and simplicity of OO design gets lost in the integration phase, as most systems do not support combination of OO and dataflow concepts. We propose a general-purpose object-oriented system for visualization and simulation which approaches simulation design, control and interactivity by merging OO and dataflow modelling in a single abstraction. This abstraction extends non-intrusively a C++ class with several dataflow-related notions to promote it to a higher, more reusable level. The framework uses a C++ interpreter for executing glue code that connects the components. Components can be loaded, instantiated and connected dynamically without recompiling or relinking the whole system. We give several examples of simulations/visualizations where the framework was applied successfully