Distributed interactive graphics applications in computational fluid dynamics

Implementation of two distributed graphics programs used in computational fluid dynamics is discussed. Both programs are interactive in nature. They run on a CRAY-2 supercomputer and use a Silicon Graphics Iris workstation as the front-end machine. The hardware and supporting software are from the Numerical Aerodynamic Simulation project. The supercomputer does all numerically intensive work and the workstation, as the front-end machine, allows the user to perform real-time interactive transformations on the displayed data. The first program was written as a distributed program that computes particle traces for fluid flow solutions existing on the supercomputer. The second is an older post-processing and plotting program modified to run in a distributed mode. Both programs have realized a large increase in speed over that obtained using a single machine. By using these programs, one can learn quickly about complex features of a three-dimensional flow field. Some color results are presented