Modern scientific, engineering and medical computational simulations, as well as experimental and observational data sensing/measuring devices, produce enormous amounts of data. While statistical analysis provides insight into this data, scientific visualization is tactically important for scientific discovery, product design and data analysis. These benefits are impeded, however, when scientific visualization algorithms are implemented from scratch — a time-consuming and redundant process in immersive application development. This process can greatly benefit from leveraging the state-of-the-art open-source Visualization Toolkit (VTK) and its community. Over the past two (almost three) decades, integrating VTK with a virtual reality (VR) environment has only been attempted to varying degrees of success. In this paper, we demonstrate two new approaches to simplify this amalgamation of an immersive interface with visualization rendering from VTK. In addition, we cover several enhancements to VTK that provide near real-time updates and efficient interaction. Finally, we demonstrate the combination of VTK with both Vrui and OpenVR immersive environments in example applications.

The availability of low-cost virtual reality (VR) systems coupled with a growing population of researchers accustomed to newer interface styles makes this a ripe time to help domain science researchers cross the bridge to utilizing immersive interfaces. The logical next step is for scientists, engineers, doctors, etc. to incorporate immersive visualization into their exploration and analysis workflows. However, from past experience, we know having access to equipment is not sufficient. There are also several software hurdles to overcome. Obstacles must be lowered to provide scientists, engineers, and medical professionals low-risk means of exploring technologies beyond their desktops.