VisBench was my first project involving web services for science. In a nutshell, it was a client-server that
used CORBA
(TAO),
with Python-wrapped VTK and MATLAB
as backend services and a Java client. One application analyzed the airflow over
a turbine blade and the resulting heat dissipation using a CFD simulation (NSF site).
(See LifeScienceWeb for other web services for science)