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\prefacesection{ABSTRACT}

In this thesis, a new, general-purpose software system for computational
steering has been developed to carry out simulations on parallel
computers and visualize them remotely in real-time. The steering
system is extremely lightweight, portable, robust and easy to use. As
a demonstration of the capabilities of this system, two applications
have been developed. A parallel wake-vortex simulation code has been
written and integrated with a Virtual Reality (VR) system via a separate
graphics client. The coupling of computational steering of parallel
wake-vortex simulation with VR setup provides us with near real-time
visualization of the wake-vortex data in stereoscopic mode. It opens a
new way for the future Air-Traffic Control systems to help reduce the
capacity constraint and safety problems resulting from the wake-vortex
hazard that are plaguing the airports today. In another application,
an existing computational fluid dynamics code has been integrated with
the steering system to enable interactive visualization of complex flow
simulations from any remote workstation. Benefits of scalability and
dimensional reduction arising from this approach have been imperative
in the development of this system. This system makes the visualization
of flow simulations easier, efficient, and most-importantly without any
delay as and when the results are generated, thus giving the user much
greater flexibility in interacting with the huge amounts of data.
At a more basic level, the ability to get ``immersed'' in the complex
solution as it unfolds using the depth cue of the stereoscopic display
and the near real-time nature of the computational steering system opens
a whole new dimension to the scientists for interacting with their
simulations.

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