DIVERSE stands for Device Independant Virtual Environments -- Reconfigurable, Scaleable and Extensible. DIVERSE was born at Virginia Tech in 1999, and the first release was in the summer of 2000. The following is the official description of DIVERSE taken from the DIVERSE web page:
DIVERSE is a free (GNU LGPL and GPL) software Application Programming Interface (API) and programs. It runs on GNU/Linux and IRIX systems
DIVERSE is comprised of two components:
DIVERSE is designed without the "center of the universe" paradigm; you only use the parts of DIVERSE that you need, without being forced into using a particular design for your code, or having to add unneeded features.
DIVERSE provides:
dgiGL is an extension to DIVERSE which supports rendering with the OpenGL programming interface.
dgiGL has a simple programming interface, very similar to that of the widely used GLUT toolkit.
The DSO "plug-in" system that DIVERSE uses allows you to write one program which will run everything a desktop workstation to a multi-walled CAVE. On each platform, it will use a display method and user interface appropriate to that platform.