Current trends in display hardware and their effects on scenegraph systems

Display hardware for Virtual Reality applications has changed a lot over the years. HMDs have largely been replaced by large screen immersive projections and PCs are becoming the favorite computing platform, replacing large workstation systems. The development has gained tremendous momentum and there is no end is sight. To make optimal use of the new capabilities, software system for Virtual Reality have to adapt, and be ready for further adaptations for new developments. This article describes some of the requirements on the fundamental software side of Virtual Reality systems arising from these changes, especially in terms of extensibility, flexibility, multi-threading and cluster support, and how they have been solved in the context of the Open Source OpenSG Scenegraph system.