What's New in VRSG Version 5

Real-time VRSG screen capture of an F-16 flying through volumetric clouds over MetaVR's virtual Vermont terrain.

The release of version 5.5 of MetaVR™ Virtual Reality Scene Generator™ (VRSG™) is available to customers on active maintenance. Version 5.5 contains these new features, enhancements, and 3D content:

• Additions to the military vehicle 3D model library. Approximately 135 new models have been added to MetaVR's 3D content library of military entities including a set of 29 technical vehicle models (modified armed commercial vehicles). These new technical models represent vehicles that are in use in Iraq and Afghanistan. The paint schemes of the technicals are derived from publically available photos on the Internet of actual vehicles from countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Liberia, and Somalia. Many of these models are used in the scenarios that are delivered with MetaVR’s new Afghanistan terrain that is delivered with each release of VRSG. MetaVR's 3D content library of military entities also includes a full set of Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) production vehicles, including a new high-resolution Buffalo model with an articulated arm and optional cage armor, a photo-specific model of the M1A2 TUSK, and photorealistic F-15 and F-16 models.


• Sensor enhancements include significantly improved rendering performance of IR modes, and the ability to control sensor effects on per viewport as well as per channel basis. VRSG's new sensor features include:
  · Digital zoom capability that simulates the expected blocky, aliased artifacts of a sensor as the pixel boundaries become visible at high levels of zoom.
  · Digital compression artifacts that simulate the effects of a sensor's transmitted video. This process is entirely pixel-shader based, adding minimal impact on performance at sensor resolutions. This feature complements the new digital zoom feature, as compression artifacts are more noticeable on a zoomed image.
  

Real-time VRSG sensor-based screen capture of a simulated convoy on MetaVR's Baghdad database, using entities and cultural features from MetaVR's 3D content libraries.

• VRSG’s recording feature now has a new higher quality and higher performance MPEG codec with reduced latency, support for a broader set of resolutions, support for EG 0601.1 KLV metadata encoding, and the ability to record at 60 Hz. The plugin now simulates a plug-and-play video feed for applications such as the ROVER wireless video-transmission system. Also new in version 5.5 is a plugin for recording uncompressed AVI video for the highest possible quality; this plugin is useful for cases in which video authoring is the primary objective.
• Sky enhancements that include an ephemeris model to calculate sun position, moon position, and moon phase from date, time, and geographic location. Lighting conditions can now be automatically calculated from date, time, and geographic location. Night scenes now also include a 40,000 light-point star field.
• Ability to automatically generate cultural feature lighting from shape files of road networks. This feature, and the moon disk and star field features, enable trainees in a simulator to navigate in a nocturnal exercise with accurate celestial references, and provide realistic stimulation of actual night vision goggles.
• Support for up to 8 independent, concurrent, steerable light lobes for video cards that support Pixel Shader Model 3.0.
• Enhancements to volumetric clouds, which include improved randomization and new absorption model for more realistic cloud illumination.
• New shot effect feature that enables bullet marks to be created on dynamic entities or static culture.
• New scope view feature that simulates looking at a scene through a sniper scope.
• Detail texture capability for Metadesic-formatted terrain. Artificial microtexture applied to geospecific imagery at runtime for improved ground cues and sense of motion.
• Ability to generate geometric ground detail such as grass, vegetation, or other surface details dynamically using the feature ID attribute of OpenFlight databases prior to conversion to MetaVR's MDX format.
• Support for Polhemus Scout head tracker.
• New plugins to support distortion correction for OmniMap and Elumens dome displays. (Contact MetaVR support for more information.)

	Real-time scenes in VRSG of technical and MRAP vehicle models from MetaVR’s 3D content libraries, available with version 5.5 of VRSG.

Released concurrently with VRSG version 5.5 is MetaVR's new geospecific 3D terrain of a village in Afghanistan. To meet the needs of training NATO soldiers for warfare in Afghanistan, this terrain covers 9,600 square kilometers and features a high-resolution virtual village, with over 500 buildings, in the Afghan province of Kabul. This terrain, built with MetaVR Terrain Tools for ESRI ArcGIS, is available in both MetaVR’s flat-earth and round-earth formats for visualizing in VRSG. The terrain is also delivered with correlated SAF databases in CTDB and OTF formats.

Real-time VRSG screen capture of a simulated A-10 on MetaVR's Afghanistan 3D terrain.

MetaVR continues to implement customer requested software features at no additional cost beyond the license purchase and the annual software maintenance fees. Many features in the VRSG version 5.5 release were developed as the result of customers' requests at no additional charge.

Version 5.5 of VRSG is available for download to customers on active maintenance. Contact MetaVR for further information.

	Real-time VRSG screen captures of character, vehicle, and weapon entities from the version 5 3D content libraries.

Earlier releases of VRSG version 5 included the following features, enhancements, and 3D content:

• Built-in support for dynamic 3D character entities. This feature is supplemented by a library of unique character models and weapon models. VRSG can handle thousands of active human characters with hundreds being displayed in the immediate field-of-view. (Note that for customers who currently use Boston Dynamics’ Di-Guy with VRSG, version 5 will continue to support Di-Guy. You can use both MetaVR’s new characters and Di-Guy characters together in VRSG.) Animations library includes animations for driver, passenger, and gunner positions for characters with a subset of vehicles.
• Ability to create and play back VRSG scenarios. Using First Person Simulator™ (FPS), you can record scenarios of character movements, which can then be played back in VRSG on a network or as a standalone scenario. A scenario can simply be one PDU log of a single character, or a set of multiple PDU logs of complex character interactions along with scenario-specific viewpoints, events, and cultural features.
• Common Image Generator Interface (CIGI) version 3.2 support. VRSG Metadesic implements a subset of CIGI to support the most commonly used features.
• Enhancement to VRSG Radar for Inverse Synthetic Aperture Radar (ISAR) simulation; other enhancements to improve performance and flexibility of usage. Radar requests can now be handled concurrent to rendering an out-the-window or sensor scene, reducing the number of channels required in a simulator.
  
• Several environmental effects: multiple sky models representing a variety of time-of-day and weather conditions, independent ground fog and haze layers, independent haze color and intensity for in-sun and out-of-sun viewing directions, and a mechanism for user-defined and controlled volumetric clouds.
  
  
  Real-time VRSG screen capture of volumetric clouds.
  
  
• Improved sensor post-processing effects, such as optical focus and simulated noise.
• Several enhancements to support simulation in the geographic shore line region (littoral) to include the sea floor, water and coast line: wave animation, sky model reflection, realistic underwater visibility, and sea floor terrain compiled with bathymetric data.
• Dynamic shadows for ground vehicles, character entities, and cultural features.
• New particle effects, such as rotor wash.
• VRSG demo of our Baghdad database. This demo replaces the demos that previously shipped with VRSG.
• Real time MPEG encoding; direct digital video stream recording from frame buffer to MPEG video stream. The VRSG MPEG recording feature now includes UAV KLV metadata multiplexed into an MPEG transport stream. The MPEG stream can be transmitted live over UDP, or streamed to a file for later playback.
• The addition of sound support to VRSG Metadesic (a feature that was already in VRSG MDX).
• First Person Simulator (FPS) enhancements to support forward area controller (FAC)-type actions in JTAC or CAS simulations.
• Compatibility with MUSE VIDD V2.2, to support the new auto tracking features of the MUSE protocol.
• Integration with Mersive technology for edge-blended, distortion-corrected, multiple projector displays on arbitrary-shaped surfaces.
• Full MetaVR 3D content libraries of vehicles, cultural features, and aforementioned characters. For version 5 many 3D models have been added to the 3D content libraries, including additional vehicles, human characters, weapons, animals, and cultural features including over 100 tree models to the tree library. Many military vehicle models now include normal maps, which greatly increases the visual quality of a significant number of the VRSG military vehicle models. You can rapidly build up a database’s 3D content directly in VRSG by placing models directly on the terrain in the VRSG visualization window.
• Introduction of HPY model format. The newest models in MetaVR's 3D content library are provided in HPY format. HPY is an encrypted, locked model format. They can be used in exactly the same manner as the older HPX format models, but you must have VRSG V5.4 or later and a license under active maintenance to use them. These models can be viewed in the updated Model Viewer that is delivered with VRSG V5.4. Note that VRSG and MetaVR’s terrain building applications continue to support the older HPX model format.
• Support for 3Dconnexion's SpacePilot and SpaceExplorer 6 DOF controllers.
  
• Inclusion of the following terrain databases:
  - Baghdad, Iraq with Green Zone
  - Ft. Wainwright urban training site
  - Ft. Lewis with Leschi Town MOUT site
  - Ft. Irwin (NTC) with Bicycle Lake and Tiefort City urban training site
  - Ft. Campbell with Cassidy MOUT site
  - Ft. Benning with McKenna MOUT site

The following features, formerly add-on products, are now included with core VRSG:

• First Person Simulator, which provides first-person control of your characters so you can view a networked scenario from their point of view.
  
• VRSG Radar, which enables the simulation of a radar system to be built upon the VRSG rendering engine, using VRSG visual databases and moving models.
  
• IR server, which is distributed upon request with source code based on the Technology Service Corporation (TSC) physics model. IRserver enables computer image generators (CIGs) to render a physics-based simulated infra-red (IR) real-time scene. The IRserver is an open-architecture, CIG-independent, network-based IR simulation that uses extensions to the DIS protocol to communicate with the image generators it services. The IRserver runs on a dedicated computer on the simulation network and can service multiple channels rendering IR scenes.

VRSG Version 5 also contains the following changes:

• MetaVR’s product maintenance plan now covers 1 year of technical support.
  
• The international release of VRSG does not include IRserver or VRSG Radar.

You can order VRSG version 5 directly from MetaVR.