While at NCSA, I performed an informal evaluation of some HPC coprocessing systems that were available at the time. Coprocessing (or in-situ) systems allow real-time visualization of a running simulation (as opposed to doing post-processing). This was funded through a DoD HPC Modernization Program contract and was joint work with Mary Wheeler and Clint Dawson (both at UT Austin) and others. Their PCE-QUAL-ICM was a parallelized model used to perform simulation studies of the water quality of the Chesapeake Bay.
Today, one should consider looking at Catalyst, VisIt and other tools for similar open source visualization functionality.
Coprocessing: Experience with CUMULVS and pV3
R. Heiland and M.P. Baker
A Survey of Coprocessing Systems
R. Heiland and M.P. Baker