Visualization of Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics for Astrophysics

Scientific visualization still presents a number of challenges. Effective visualization straddles several problem domains - the data structures needed to support visualization of large data sets, rendering techniques for fast and interactive display of this data, and enough understanding of the data involved to construct visualizations that provide real insight into the problem. Data from Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics simulations is of particular interest, due to its time-dependent, point-based nature and its prevalence in simulation in astrophysics in areas such as star formation and evolution. This paper looks at some of the issues associated with building a useful, usable visualization tool for SPH data from astrophysics, and describes a prototype of such a system. This paper describes work in progress.