EnSight is an advanced visualization and animation package for the postprocessing of the results of finite element analysis calculations such as computational fluid dynamics, structural analysis, combustion modeling, injection molding, thermodynamics, electromagnetics, and more. EnSight was conceived at Cray Research in 1987 and designed to allow users to productively work with large and often transient datasets. A distributed client-server software architecture was implemented as a means to handle large datasets.
The server (typically running where the analysis was performed) handles I/O and compute intensive functions like particle tracing, isosurfaces, and arbitrary cutting planes. The server transmits 3D geometry (not XWindows calls) to a client running on a graphics workstation. The client manages the user interface and uses the native graphics hardware to display images. The server is idle during local operations on the client.
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