  In the context of high performance finite element analysis, the cost of
iteratively modifying a computational domain via re-meshing and restarting the
analysis becomes time prohibitive as the size of simulations increases. In this
paper, we demonstrate a new interactive simulation pipeline targeting high
performance finite element simulations where the computational domain is
modifiable in situ, that is, while the simulation is ongoing. This pipeline is
designed to be modular so that it may interface with any existing finite
element simulation framework. A server-client architecture is employed to
manage simulation mesh data existing on a high performance computing resource
while user-prescribed freeform geometric modifications take place on a separate
workstation. We employ existing in situ visualization techniques to rapidly
inform the user of simulation progression, enabling computational steering. By
expressing the simulation domain in a reduced fashion on the client
application, this pipeline manages highly refined finite element simulation
domains on the server while maintaining good performance on the client
application.
