An interactive visualisation tool applied to the simulation of glass pressing

An interactive numerical simulation approach to the process of glass pressing is presented. Glass is modelled as a strongly viscous Newtonian fluid whose deformation under pressure is described by a Stokes equation. Modelling the evolution of the glass free boundary in time poses a particular problem which is dealt with by a special integration technique. Next, we present how we integrate the numerical simulation with an interactive visualisation and computational steering tool. The resulting application allows for interactive simulation control and result monitoring. The presented software integration technique does not require any changes to the numerical simulation code and can be thus used to couple other similar computational engines with a steering and visualisation front-end. Received: 29 November 1999 / Accepted: 7 June 2001