EnSight engineering tool to support iChat Theater

Computational Engineering International (CEI) announced Thursday that its EnSight visualization software — used in engineering and science — will work with Apple’s iChat Theater, a new feature coming to Mac OS X v10.5 with Leopard’s release this fall. The company will preview the tech at next week’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in San Francisco.

EnSight makes it possible for scientists, researchers and engineers to analyze and visualize complex datasets. It’s used for Computation Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and Finite Element Analysis (FEA), and it runs on a variety of operating systems including Mac OS X. CEI calls EnSight an “extreme visualization” tool.

iChat Theater is a new technology in Leopard that enables you to send other media content like slideshows, movies and presentations to iChat conference attendees. Clicking a single button sends that content to the current chat and presents it with your image as you narrate.

When Apple first revealed iChat Theater at last year’s WWDC, it was indicated that developers would be able to access this feature through a plug-in interface. CEI is one of the first companies to step up to the plate with a practical application that takes advantage of this new technology.

If you’re attending WWDC 07, look for more details at the Mac OS X Scientific Computing State of the Union Session, which is scheduled to take place on June 12.