Scientific Visualization and Virtual Prototyping in the Product Development Process

In this paper we introduce our work within the DMU (Digital Mock-Up) project. The focus of this project is the development of technolgy for replacing physical prototypes by virtual prototypes. In particular, we discuss here the integration of scientific visalization into virtual prototyping. Fraunhofer-IGD has implemented the DMU demonstrator - we describe those parts of the demonstrator where scientific visaulization funcionality was incorporated. Furthermore, IGD has carried out seperate "virtual Prototyping" projects wth two german car manufacturers where we realized "immersive data visualization". We describe those projects and discuss the several approaches to implement immersive data visualization. From our experience with different approaches and applications we discuss the use and usefulness of virtual reality technology for scientific visualization