The system runs, along with all of the SLD Offline Analysis code, within a shell called IDA written by Toby Burnett. IDA, which stands for Interactive Data Analysis, provides an integrated command environment featuring an interpreted command language.

The Physics Data and the Internal Display List are contained within SLD's data management system, Jazelle, written by Tony Johnson. Jazelle provides a powerful, pointer-based system for handling large volumes of data in complex structures.

The combination of IDA's interpreted command language with Jazelle's pointer-based structures allows the SLD Event Display system to interact in complex and user-extensible ways with the underlying Physics analysis code.