Today, the use of fluid flow analysis to solve design problems is slowed by the fact that the person performing the analysis often is not an expert on the design issues involved, while the engineers and customers who know the design best often have difficulty interpreting fluid flow results.

Virtual reality can overcome this problem by creating a computer-generated world in which people who are not analysis experts can see the results in a context that they can easily understand. Even people who are familiar with interpreting analysis results can gain insights that make it possible to understand the root causes of observed problems and plan design changes in much less time.

Virtual reality software is becoming more common and is now available commercially for visualizing CFD results. At the same time, virtual reality hardware has become less expensive leading to increased adoption of this powerful technology.