Computational Steering in the Problem Solving Environment WBCSim

Computational steering allows scientists to interactively control a numerical experiment and adjust parameters of the computation on-the-fly and explore “what if” analysis. Computational steering effectively reduces computational time, makes research more efficient, and opens up new product design opportunities. There are several problem solving environments (PSEs) featuring computational steering. However, there is hardly any work explaining how to enable computational steering for PSEs embedded with legacy simulation codes. This paper describes a practical approach to implement computational steering for such PSEs by using WBCSim as an example. WBCSim is a Web based simulation system designed to increase the productivity of wood scientists conducting research on wood-based composites manufacturing processes. WBCSim serves as a prototypical example for the design, construction, and evaluation of small-scale PSEs. Various changes have been made to support computational steering across the three layers—client, server, developer—comprising the WBCSim system. A detailed description of the WBCSim system architecture is presented, along with a typical scenario of computational steering usage.