Recent numerical methods to solve partial differential equations in scientific computing are based on a variety of advanced kinds of domain discretizations and appropriate finite dimensional function spaces for the solutions. The scope of grids under consideration includes structured and unstructured, adaptive and hierarchical, conforming and nonconforming meshes. The function spaces might be of Lagrangian or Hermitian type with higher polynomial degree and possibly discontinuous over element boundaries. Unfortunately, the rendering tools in scientific visualization are mostly restricted to special data structures which differ substantially from the data formats used in the numerical application. This forces users to map and interpolate their data, which is time consuming, storage extensive, and accompanied with interpolation errors.

We present an interface between numerical methods on various types of grids and general visualization routines which overcomes most of these disadvantages. It is based on a procedural approach managing a collection of arbitrary elements and a set of functions describing each element type.

Keywords: Visualization, arbitrary meshes, mixed elements, procedural access

AMS-Classification 65S05, 68P05, 68U05

in R. Scateni, J. Van Wijk, P. Zanarini (eds.): Visualization in Scientific Computing '95, Springer (1995), 35-44