IDV develops, markets, and licenses visualization software products and tools that deliver enterprise-level benefits to organizations engaged in modeling and simulation, visual simulation, and video game design. One of their tools, called Eye-Sys, is an application designed to quickly gather data from disparate sources, manipulate that data as necessary, and use it to drive interactive, real-time visualizations on consumer-level personal computers.Eye-Sys systems can be conceptualized as a collection of interconnected nodes. Each of these nodes performs computational functions (data input, manipulation, or display) with a collection of internal properties. The nodes can be connected by establishing a directional link from one node property to another. These links establish that one node is transmitting the value of one of its properties into the property of another node. These ?building block? connections define the behavior of the system. Disparate data sources can easily be brought together just by using several input building blocks. For example, ship movements and locations in a spreadsheet can be imported right along with a geographic database that describes the theater of operations. Similarly, various visualization techniques can be brought to bear on incoming data. For example, animated isosurfaces can be used to show real-time radiation levels within a highly detailed rendering of a ship compartment.
One of the interesting case studies of Eye-Sys is the Global Cereal Supply Chain (shown here in detail) which maps this global network in quite an enticing way.
