One core aspect of immersive visualization labs is to develop and provide powerful tools and applications that allow for efficient analysis and exploration of scientific data. As the requirements for such applications are often diverse and complex, the same applies to the development process. This has led to a myriad of different tools, frameworks, and approaches that grew and developed over time. The steady advance of commercial off-the-shelf game engines such as Unreal Engine has made them a valuable option for development in immersive visualization labs. In this work, we share our experience of migrating to Unreal Engine as a primary developing environment for immersive visualization applications. We share our considerations on requirements, present use cases developed in our lab to communicate advantages and challenges experienced, discuss implications on our research and development environments, and aim to provide guidance for others within our community facing similar challenges.

翻译：沉浸式可视化实验室的一个核心任务是开发并提供强大的工具与应用程序，以实现对科学数据的高效分析与探索。由于此类应用的需求通常多样且复杂，其开发过程亦面临相应挑战。这促使多种不同的工具、框架与方法随时间演进并发展。以Unreal Engine为代表的商用现成游戏引擎的持续进步，使其成为沉浸式可视化实验室开发工作的有价值选择。本文分享了我们将Unreal Engine迁移为沉浸式可视化应用主要开发环境的实践经验。我们阐述了需求考量，展示了本实验室开发的用例以说明所体验的优势与挑战，讨论了其对研发环境的影响，并旨在为面临类似挑战的学界同行提供参考指南。