A VR In-Situ Steering Framework Using Particle-Based Visualization

Abstract

This paper presents a particle-based virtual reality (VR) in-situ steering framework, called VR IS-PBVR, for simulations executed in high-performance computing (HPC) environments in nuclear engineering and computational fluid dynamics. The framework leverages particle-based volume rendering to convert simulation results into compact particle representations, enabling efficient remote visualization by transferring compressed data to a client-side VR environment. High frame rate rendering on head-mounted displays is achieved through an OpenXR-based VR backend. The main contributions of this work are threefold. First, we design and implement a VR-based in-situ steering framework tightly coupled with simulations running in HPC environments. Second, we realize immersive human-in-the-loop steering by combining fly-through navigation with direct spatial specification of observation and analysis regions within the VR space. Third, we ensure compatibility with commercially available head-mounted displays through OpenXR and demonstrate applicability to a CityLBM simulation with more than 10⁸ cells.