CSE A Modular Architecture for Computational Steering

Computational steering is the ultimate goal of interactive simulation. Steering enables users to supervise and dynamically control the computation of an ongoing simulation. We describe CSE: a modular architecture for a computational steering environment. The kernel of the architecture is designed to be very simple, flexible and minimalistic. All higher level system functionality is pushed into modular components outside of the kernel, resulting in a rich and powerful environment. For these modular components (called satellites) a uniform user interface metaphor for users, based on a tray of cards, has been used. The card tray metaphor is very simple to understand and provides users with a simple mechanism to organize and retrieve the tools. Several applications of the environment are shown.