Abstract: This paper describes the efforts being carried out at the NRL towards VR Scientific Visualization. We are exploring scientific visualization in an immersive virtual environment: the NRL's CAVE-like device known as the GROTTO. Our main effort has been towards the development of software that eases the transition between desktop visualization and VR visualization. It has been our intention to develop visualization tools that can be applied in a wide range of scientific areas without spending excessive time in software development. The advantages of such software are clear. The scientists do not have to be expert programmers, nor need they make a large investment of time to visualize scientific information in a Virtual Environment. As a result of this effort, we were able to port a considerable number of applications to the GROTTO in a short period of time. These projects cover a wide range of scientific areas and include chemistry, fluid dynamics, space physics and materials sciences. We describe the major technical hurdles we have addressed for interactive visualization of real data sets for real users. Finally we comment on the advantages that immersive systems like the GROTTO offer to the scientific community. !6
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