Today, scientists and engineers are exploring advanced applications and uses of immersive systems that can be cost-effectively applied in their fields. However, one of the impediments to the widespread use of these technologies is the extensive technical expertise required of application developers. A software environment that provides abstractions from specific details of hardware configurations and low-level software tools is needed to provide a common base for the prototyping, development, testing and debugging of applications. This paper describes VR Juggler, a virtual platform for the creation and execution of immersive applications, that provides a virtual reality system-independent operating environment. We focus on the approach taken to specify, design and implement VR Juggler and the benefits derived from our approach.

Virtual reality (VR) installations are often unique; every one is a complex blend of hardware devices, displays and computing resources. The configuration of VR software is therefore a difficult and time-consuming process. VR Juggler, our toolkit for VR application development, addresses these problems with a number of innovations. VR Juggler provides a unique system for organizing the configuration information for a system and minimizing the proliferation of configuration files that many systems suffer. It provides a graphical tool, called VjControl, for editing configurations, which can protect users from many common mistakes. VR Juggler also has advanced capabilities for monitoring and altering the configuration of a running immersive application.