Visualization `a la Unix

A visualization framework can be seen as a solution to a specialized data flow problem. Spiegel1 is a visualization framework which uses the Unix pipeline model to execute programs that visualize scientific data. A visualization program in Spiegel is constructed out of simple components with communication endpoints which can be con- nected together. Spiegel provides a graphical pro- gramming environment, which can be used to write programs using these components. This paper de- scribes the language used to define a Spiegel pro- gram, the graphical programming environment, and the Spiegel architecture