This paper describes a technique that allows an MPI code to be encapsulated into a component. Our technique is based on an extension to the Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) from the OMG (Object Management Group). The proposed extensions do not modify the CORBA core infrastructure (the Object Request Broker) so that it can fully co-exist with existing CORBA applications. An MPI code is seen as a new kind of CORBA object that hides most of the cumbersome problems when dealing with parallelism. Such technique can be used to connect MPI codes to existing CORBA software infrastructures which are now being developed in the framework of several research and development projects such as JACO3, JULIUS or TENT from DLR. To illustrate the concept of parallel CORBA object, we present a virtual reality application that is made of the coupling of a light simulation application (radiosity) and a visualisation tool using VRML and Java.