VIBes: A Visualizer for Intervals and Boxes

VIBes is an Open Source scientific visualization system that aims at providing people working with interval methods an easy way to display results (boxes, pavings), without worrying about graphical user interface programming. It provides drawing functions accessible from multiple programming languages, without complex installation and library dependencies. VIBes is made of a visualization program and an application programming interface for popular programming languages (currently C++ and MATLAB, more are planned). It is designed for instant setup in any project and has a very short learning curve, which makes it a good visualization tool for teaching labs and tutorials. The communication between programs and VIBes goes through named-pipe or files and consists in human-readable messages. Very simple drawing functions are provided, and the VIBes viewer features navigating inside drawings and exporting images. This paper presents the main concepts driving the design of VIBes, and its software architecture. Two short programs displaying the results of a set-inversion problem and the display of projected 3-D data are provided, and future development directions are detailed.