The Rappture toolkit solves that problem by providing the basic infrastructure for a large class of scientific applications, letting scientists focus on their core algorithm. It does so in a language-neutral fashion, so you can access Rappture in a variety of programming environments, including C/C++, Fortran and Python. To use Rappture, you simply describe all of the inputs and outputs for your simulator, and Rappture generates a Graphical User Interface (GUI) for your tool automatically.

This tutorial provides an overview of Rappture and its capabilities. It shows an example of giving a "face lift" to a legacy tool by wrapping it with a Rappture interface. It also shows how Rappture can be directly integrated into new simulators written in Fortran, Python, etc. With very little investment, Rappture will produce a friendly user interface for your application.

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

• Michael McLennan (2005), "Add Rappture to Your Software Development," https://nanohub.org/resources/240.

1. cyberinfrastructure
2. programming techniques
3. rappture
4. software development
5. visualization