Data-Flow Oriented Visual Programming Libraries for Scientific Computing

The growing release of scientific computational software does not seem to aid the implementation of complex numerical algorithms. Released libraries lack a common standard interface with regard to for instance finite element, difference or volume discretizations. And, libraries written in standard languages such as FORTRAN or c++ need not even contain the information required for combining different libraries in a safe manner. This paper introduces a small standard interface, to adorn existing libraries with. The interface aims at the – automated – implementation of complex algorithms for numerics and visualization. First, we derive a requirement list for the interface: it must be identical for different libraries and numerical disciplines, support interpreted, compiled and visual programming, must be implemented using standard tools and languages, and adorn libraries in the absence of source code. Next, we show the benefits of its implementation in a mature (visual) programming environment [1], [2] and [3]), where it adorns both public domain and commercial libraries. The last part of this paper describes the interface itself. For an example, the implementational details are worked out.