Article from the Armed Forces Journal International
Training & Simulation July 2000 issue,
"David And Goliath", pp. 8-9. 

MetaVR has capitalized on the dramatic advances in commercial off-the-shelf Personal Computer (PC)-based graphics processors which, coupled with the company's unique software, provide low-cost, high-performance, military visual simulation capabilities that previously required customized image generators costing hundreds of millions of dollars. The Brookline, MA-based firm has enjoyed growing success in winning small orders for its visualization software products from various US Army organizations.

The company's core software product is a 3D render engine called the Virtual Reality Scene Generator (VRSG), which is known in the industry as a run-time or real-time scene manager. It takes an existing geo-specific terrain database and renders (draws) objects on it that the crew of an M1 tank simulator, for example, would see as their vehicle moves about the virtual battlefield and they look out through different vehicle/weapon sights.

An M1 simulator,Smith noted, requires seven or eight visual channels for its crew, including independent views for the tank commander, gunner, and driver, that are drawn by separate processors and must be synchronized as the tank or the gun turret moves. All of the views have to be updated at the same rate so no difference is perceived between the displays. MetaVR's ruggedized, rack-mounted, PC-based ChannelSurfer multi-channel image generator, which won the Ft. Knox competition, incorporates a separate VRSG for each required channel.

The companys first major contract involved upgrading the image generators in eight SIMNET helicopter simulators at the Army Aviation Center at Ft. Rucker, AL. MetaVR's systems have been used successfully there since August 1998.

In the Ft. Knox competition run by CCTT prime contractor Lockheed Martin Information Systems for the Army, 7 of 10 invited firms showed up for a February 1999 fly-off. The competitors were all given the same, demanding terrain database; the graphics outputs of their different image generators were fed to separate, side-by-side TV monitors in a "video wall"; viewed by evaluators from the Army's Simulation, Training and Instrumentation Command and Lockheed Martin. A subsequent downselect led to a second demonstration by MetaVR and two other companies using an even more challenging Sarajevo database, and the three competing systems were evaluated against a rigorous test procedure list. In July 1999, MetaVR was selected as the winner based on both performance and cost.

What made MetaVR's product superior to the others besides the high resolution of its visual display?" A big factor," Smith said, "is what's called the frame rate--the rate at which the visual display is updated. We believe that we had the highest frame rate of any of the competitors. The existing CCTT visual systems, and nearly all our competitors, ran at 15 Hz or frames per second. If you can maintain 60 frames per second, as our system does, when the user moves around in the virtual world he doesn't perceive any lag or delay when his field of view changes. That's really key for high-quality, realistic visual simulation."

Four of MetaVR's systems have been installed on CCTT M1 and M2 simulators as a proof of concept. Smith told T&S 2000, "CCTT has been a very interesting collaboration. Lockheed Martin took components out of the CCTT software for the M1 and M2 and made simulation software that would run on a PC, a Linux machine that fits into MetaVR's image generator rack to drive the visuals. As a result, at Ft. Knox there are M1 and M2 simulators that are using CCTT libraries for their simulation models that drive MetaVR's visuals."

The Mounted Maneuver Battlespace Lab at Ft. Knox later chose MetaVR to upgrade PC-based visual systems it previously bought from another software/hardware supplier team to meet the higher performance requirements of its Battle Command Reengineering (BCR4) experiments. MetaVR rebuilt the computers (reusing what it could), loaded its software into them, and delivered them back to the Lab.

In May, the company won a contract from the Army National Guard to supply 14 simulation host computers with 72 visual channels, using discarded crew cabins from older SIMNET simulators. MetaVR has also found a niche providing visual simulation systems for training Army ground-station-based, sensor payload operators to fly unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) on surveillance missions. "That's a big market for us right now," Smith said. MetaVR is replacing an incumbent software/hardware supplier's systems for the Army's MUSE simulation program for Hunter and other UAVs at Huntsville, AL.

MetaVR keeps its overhead low by outsourcing not only administrative and infrastructure services to other firms but also manufacturing and systems integration functions to two"virtually integrated partners", MainBoard Computer and DSCI.

"We're primarily a software company; that's our main focus, Smith said. "But we found that a lot of our customers also like us to supply nice computers to run our software on, and we discovered that controlling the quality of the computer makes our software perform better.

MetaVR's relationship with MainBoard Computer, Smith noted, provides his company with a complete, just-in-time manufacturing facility with the ability to ship complete systems, built to order, in as little as five days from receipt of the order. MetaVR gives MainBoard the specifications; MainBoard then builds ruggedized computers for MetaVR's military training customers, loads its software, and does all the quality assurance and shipping. When extensive systems integration is needed by MetaVR's customers, the company draws on the resources and expertise of DSCI to provide complete integration with the customers' existing legacy systems. MetaVR doesn't do subcontract work; it simply delivers turnkey software and hardware products to military customers or larger industry system integrators, such as Lockheed Martin or SAIC. For example, Smith noted, "United Defense purchased our software for two US Army Crusader howitzer simulators, but bought its computer hardware separately from a vendor it was comfortable with and installed our software. Our biggest competitive advantage," Smith said, "is that we like to do competitive fly-offs. We say, 'Provide the same terrain database to whoever wants to compete, and then let us all show up for a competitive side-by-side comparison of our image generators'." He noted, "Today, the PC graphics industry has a high clock speed. Simulators used to require very long lead times to build and were very expensive;they had very long cycles. But those cycles have now shrunk dramatically. That has improved the competition in the industry."