Immersed boundary simulations have modeled the beating heart, platelet aggregation during blood clotting, swimming of aquatic flagellates, and pumping by ciliated tentacles among others. The figure on the right is based on a simulation of a marine organism with ciliated tenticles.

To date, the immersed boundary method has only been used for simulations by experts in computational fluid dynamics because the details of programming it can be overwhelming.

IBIS was developed to allow non-experts to use the power of the immersed boundary method. IBIS is a software system for easily initiating, conducting and visualizing immersed boundary simulations.

The development of IBIS has been supported by the National Science Foundation under grant numbers DMS-9307643 and DMS-9805518.