
The visualization data is coming from EwE6, a well-respected ecosystem modeling software. Blender uses inputs such as biomass, water turbidity and light level to create a realtime visualization that allows the user to 'swim' around in the ocean, watch the schools of fish interact, and see their population change over time.
To accomplish all this, the project consists of 3 layers:

The server core does all the heavy computation while the visualization layer does all the graphics, AI, as well as user interaction. To facilitate the communication across these two separate processes, a third layer is created, providing the bridge.
Being Blender artists, Dalai Felinto (dfelinto) and I (Mike Pan, mpan3)'s main focus on the visualization layer: the Blender Game Engine.
This thread will hopefully answer some of the questions regarding this project.
We presented this project at the 2008 BLender conference You can find some slides and source files there.