MetaVR VRSG as a Standalone DIS/HLA Viewer

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Virtual Reality Scene Generator (VRSG)


		Overview


			Real-time Media Clips of Demo Scenarios


		Computer Image Generator (IG)


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		What's in Version 5


			Tour the User Interface


		Interoperability with SAF


			Character Animation


		First Person Simulator


			Radar Simulation


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		User's Guide

Metadesic Compiler

North America 3D Metadesic Terrain

Asia 3D Metadesic Terrain

Summary of MetaVR's Available 3D Terrain

WorldPerfect

3D Terrain Creation

3D Layering Control Plugin for ArcMap

Photo-Specific 3D Content

Complete Systems

3D Accelerators

Storage Devices

Navigational Controllers

Evaluation Policy

VRSG as a Standalone DIS/HLA Viewer

As a standalone Windows-based DIS/HLA viewer, VRSG's core features include:

Terrain paging algorithms to visualize geographically expansive terrain limited only by the storage capacity of the user's system.
Synchronized multiple viewpoints so the user can depict a contiguous virtual world across a set of multiple display systems.
Culling and continuous morphing levels of detail techniques to provide a realistic virtual world without anomalous visual artifacts.
Support for the 6 DOF controller devices, and for standard Windows joystick devices.
Choice of coordinate systems and database projections.
Basic sensor-view features:
white and black hot modes, Day TV, and simulated noise. Additional physics-based IR support through the MetaVR IRserver.
Ability to save and recall named viewpoints.
Editable 3D sounds associated with virtual world events and vehicle types.
Dynamic environmental effects.
Massive libraries of texture-mapped 3D content (characters, vehicles, culture.

3D animated characters; VRSG support hundreds of characters within the field of view while still maintaining a high frame rate.
Multiple degree-of-freedom hardware tracker support for controlling the position and/or orientation of the VRSG viewpoint.
Absolute terrain correlation with the SAF Compact Terrain Database (CTDB) format. Also, ability to use VRSG to visually inspect SAF databases for terrain anomalies.
Conversion tools for converting from the MultiGen OpenFlight model and terrain format to the MetaVR HPX model and MDX terrain formats.
A virtual world camera that can capture still images and save them to the Windows Clipboard or to a file for use in other applications such as Microsoft Office.
Support for UDP multicast, broadcast, or point-to-point communication.
Teleportation to arbitrary locations.
A rich set of attachment modes.
Ability to modify and save configuration settings of a simulation for reuse in subsequent sessions.
Real-time digital video stream recording from frame buffer to MPEG (available in version 5.2 ).

Navigation

You navigate through the virtual world by using the VRSG user interface, and a game controller such as the Spacetec SpaceOrb 360 or 3DConnection SpaceBall.

3D API

By using the Microsoft Direct3D API, a subcomponent of the Microsoft DirectX ™ interactive media technologies, VRSG provides significant capabilities for multiplayer interaction on commercially available graphics cards and personal computers. VRSG is also interoperable with other DirectX components, such as DirectSound, and DirectSound 3D.

Network capabilities

Using the DIS protocol, or the High Level Architecture plugin, VRSG can visualize up to several thousand ground and air vehicles simultaneously on a high-fidelity terrain database. VRSG is fully interoperable with Semi-Automated Forces (SAF) and other DIS-compliant applications.

The following diagram shows a network simulation where entity generation occurs on one computer and the visualization takes place on another computer:

Network simulation diagram

Interaction with SAF

VRSG is interoperable with commonly used SAF systems by rendering entities three-dimensionally and providing positional feedback information and user control visually for Plan View Displays. MetaVR's own runtime optimized virtual world format, called the MetaVR MDX format, provides for correlation with the Compact Terrain Database (CTDB) format.

MDX API

MetaVR provides an application programmer's interface (API), with which you can build your own MDX databases to use with VRSG. Object files and an example oflt2mdx.exe MultiGen OpenFlight application executable with source code are provided at no additional cost to MetaVR customers. Contact MetaVR to obtain the object file for a specific platform. Any MDX database you create with the MDX API can be freely distributed without restriction.

OpenFlight conversion utilities

MetaVR provides free conversion utilities to convert MultiGen OpenFlight databases to the MDX format and to convert OpenFlight models to the MetaVR 3D model HPX™ format. These conversion utilities enable you to reuse your existing MultiGen OpenFlight databases and entities for visualization within VRSG. These utilities are distributed with VRSG. In addition, MetaVR provides a plugin for MultiGen Creator, which enables you to export OpenFlight models in HPX format.

If you need an entity that is not available in VRSG's current entity library, you can order commercially available 3D models in OpenFlight format from a number of sources.