MetaVR North America 3D Metadesic Terrain

MetaVR™'s seamless 3D terrain of North America is constructed with 70-100-meter elevation data and with natural color imagery ranging from 0.24 to 1 meters-per-pixel (mpp) resolution. The round-earth, geocentric Metadesic™ covering nearly a 1,500 geocell area includes high-resolution insets of several areas of interest including military installations and urban areas. Each high-resolution inset contains image data ranging in resolution from 0.24 mpp to 0.75 mpp. Built with MetaVR’s Terrain Tools for ESRI® ArcGIS®, the round-earth Metadesic™-formatted terrain tiles reside in a geocentric coordinate system. These tiles are suitable for real-time visualization and simulation applications that use MetaVR Virtual Reality Scene Generator™ (VRSG™), including synthetic vision such as glass-cockpit displays, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) applications and fixed-wing cockpit simulation.

	Images from MetaVR's North America terrain in Metadesic format. Click to swap rendered and wireframe views. Click Zoom to view an enlarged image.

The North America dataset can also serve as a baseline to which you can add higher-fidelity information to refine the terrain in a given area of interest by building additional terrain tiles from your data with MetaVR Terrain Tools for ArcGIS.  For example, you can add high-resolution aerial imagery or LIDAR elevation data, GPS point surveys, or 3D point features such as buildings, trees, targets, and runway models. You can make these additions as they become available, even in real-time if information is provided directly from sensors in the field. The Metadesic architecture automatically signals any listening runtime visualizations that new data is available to be paged into memory. This update flexibility is:

• Efficient - conventional simulations applications do not need to recompile entire dataset upon receipt of new data.


• Scalable - independent assets can be applied to both construction and visualization.


• Innovative - mission rehearsal and battle damage assessment tasks can now include a 3D visualization component that is sensor-data driven.

Specification

Specification for MetaVR’s North America terrain dataset in Metadesic format (MDS):

		Dataset size		= 1,490 geocells (14,900,000 sq km)
		Size on disk Terrain post spacing Source imagery Terrain elevation Terrain imagery		= 11.12 TB = 60 meters-per-post = approximately 4.5 TB = 3 arcseconds (70-100 meter) = 1 meters-per-pixel (mpp) natural color imagery from the     Simulator Database Facility (SDBF) at Kirtland Air Force     Base, distributed for government simulation training     only, with high-resolution imagery ranging from 0.24 to     0.50 mpp for several urban areas and most US military     installations.

MetaVR updates this 3D terrain on an ongoing basis as new source data become available. The North America 3D Metadesic terrain is "Additional Materials" and is provided "as is" as described in our license agreement.  Although MetaVR might modify or enhance the original source imagery, some visual artifacts from the source imagery might remain in the terrain tiles. You can build higher-resolution terrain tiles with MetaVR Terrain Tools with your own source data to refine the terrain for a given area of interest.  You can also request terrain enhancements or higher resolution terrain tiles from MetaVR.

Although the North America terrain is comprised of US imagery, with MetaVR's Terrain Tools for ArcGIS you could construct 3D terrain of the entire earth if low-cost redistributable data were available.

The following symbolic representation shows the geographic coverage of this 3D dataset’s terrain tiles. This tile coverage map was generated with MetaVR’s Model Viewer:

The areas in green (mostly of Canada and Mexico) indicate 15 mpp imagery, the orange-brown areas indicate 1 mpp resolution imagery, and the bright red areas indicate imagery resolution of less than 1 mpp.

MetaVR updates this 3D terrain on an ongoing basis as new source data become available.

MetaVR’s North America 3D terrain contains several high-resolution areas of interest to our customers, which are built up with geospecific cultural features. These areas are modeled from photographs taken at the actual site. A selection of these areas is described below.

		Virtual Nellis Air Force Base
		Imagery coverage Elevation coverage Cultural features		= 1 mpp overall, 0.30 mpp commercial imagery of the     Nellis airfield. = Custom DEM overlaid on the source DEM to provide     greater than 95% accuracy for runway elevations     compared to FAA charts. = 163 high-resolution, geolocated models of hangars,     offices, storage facilities, and other buildings at the     airfield, (48 unique geospecific models built from photos     taken onsite), a high-resolution F-16C aircraft model,     and the runway; neighborhood of 644 residential     houses (2 unique models); cultural lights (336,264 total     light points), and runway signage; 363 geotypical     volumetric trees.

		Virtual Luke Air Force Base
		Imagery coverage Elevation coverage Cultural features		= 1 mpp resolution of Arizona, 0.24-0.50 mpp of the Luke    airfield and Barry M. Goldwater Range (BMGR), 0.30 mpp    of Luke AFB facilities, and Phoenix metro area. = 1 arcsecond (30 mpp) National Elevation Data (NED).    Custom elevation model of Luke airfield that matches    with at least 95% accuracy official airfield elevations. = 171 high-resolution, geolocated models of hangars,    offices, storage facilities, and other structures: 104 at    Luke AFB and 107 at the East Tactical Range (ETAC) at    the BMGR (97 unique geospecific models built from    photos taken onsite), a unique high-resolution F-16C    aircraft model; runway models at Luke AFB and the    main ETAC airfield; 673  static vehicle and sign models;    831,581 cultural lights of the greater Phoenix area as    well as runway lights and runway signage at Luke AFB;    and 103 geotypical volumetric trees.

		Virtual Vermont Air National Guard Airfield
		Imagery coverage Elevation coverage Cultural features		= 1 mpp overall, 0.50 mpp imagery of the airfield and    base facilities at Burlington International Airport. = 60 meter post spacing. = 45 high-resolution, geolocated models of hangars,    offices, storage facilities, and other buildings in the    area, a high-resolution F-16C aircraft model, and the    runway. In addition, the virtual terrain includes the    commercial air terminal, and approximately 40 other    models of elements at Burlington International Airport,    such as geotypical volumetric trees, geospecific runway    lights, street lights, and signs.

Delivery

MetaVR’s North America 3D terrain is delivered on a set of six external hard drives that include terrain constructed from natural color imagery ranging from 0.24 to 1 mpp resolution. Each drive also includes 4 mpp resolution tiles derived from the 1 mpp terrain for customers who need a more compact version of the terrain. The hard drives are organized by region as shown in the following table:

MetaVR’s North America 3D terrain in Metadesic format is available for purchase to all MetaVR customers who are on active VRSG software maintenance and are US Government agencies or contractors (for official use only). For US-domestic use only, not available for export. The terrain is provided in MetaVR's terrain format and will only run with a valid VRSG version 5.7 or greater software license with valid software maintenance through July 1, 2011.

The North America 3D terrain set is available in its entirety or in sections of interest (as described in the table above). A fee covers processing large quantities of data into Metadesic format and hard drive distribution media.

You can order the North American terrain directly from MetaVR. To order a region of North America terrain, specify the line item on the order form and then provide the name of the region (as described in the table above).