Ft. Campbell Special Operations Urban Training Environment

MetaVR has built a highly realistic real-time 3D replica of the Ft. Campbell, Kentucky Cassidy Military Operations in Urban Terrain (MOUT) site for simulation and training of infantry and future combat systems (FCS).

VRSG (MetaVR's image generator) rendering of a micro-UAV overlooking a hostage scenario at MetaVR’s virtual Ft. Campbell Cassidy MOUT site. The scene is from a MetaVR demo scenario and includes site-specific building models and character and vehicle entity models from MetaVR’s 3D content libraries.

The 90,000 square kilometer Ft. Campbell terrain is centered on the urban training facility that represents the Cassidy MOUT site. The terrain database is designed to support both fixed-rotary wing high-speed flight and close urban combat training scenarios.

Included in the database are 14 MOUT building models, which were created from perspectiveless digital photographs of the structures at the Cassidy MOUT site. The building models were created in Blender, an open source 3D modeling application; the model designers made use of MetaVR’s new export plugin to Blender. These models have radiosity (soft shadows) applied to the geometry to increase their realism. The database also makes use of other cultural elements such as street signs, electrical boxes, street lights, gas pumps, fences, sewer covers, flag poles, and utility cables. All models are in MetaVR’s HPX format.

MetaVR’s virtual Cassidy MOUT site rendered in VRSG.

Because a significant part of urban combat takes place indoors, wall surfaces, furniture, articulated doors, windows, and blast holes were added to the building interiors to create a realistic training model.

Interior scene from MetaVR’s virtual Cassidy MOUT site depicting a scenario with snipers. Modeled interior wall surfaces, articulated windows and doors, and furniture inside the buildings contribute to a realistic training experience.

Once the building models were constructed, the user created a symbolic representation of the terrain in the MetaVR WorldPerfect workspace.

WorldPerfect workspace with a layout of the virtual Cassidy MOUT site prior to compilation. The workspace is a 2D symbolic representation of the terrain for laying out roads and cultural features on top of a base map. Click the image to see an enlargement.

After the Cassidy site was fully described in the 2D layout, WorldPerfect compiled all the source data and user-specified representations of the terrain into a functional real-time 3D MOUT site. The compilation included producing a detailed tinned area of the MOUT site that shows subtle terrain relief derived from the multi-resolution elevation source data. Dense geospecific tree lines laid out by the user in WorldPerfect were compiled into the terrain to enhance the realism.

Approaching the virtual Cassidy MOUT site.

Geotypical grasses and volumetric trees on the virtual Cassidy MOUT site.

A key component of realistic urban warfare infantry training is traversing the avenues of approach into the town. The significant geographic extents of the MetaVR Ft. Campbell database and extensive tree lines surrounding the Cassidy site provide an environment for training soldiers how to approach urban centers undetected. Subtle terrain details such as the gradual rise from the treeline into the MOUT site are necessary to provide avenues of approach for the infantry training. As well, it is important that the 3D terrain database captures such subtle detail as observed in the real MOUT area to provide the most realistic training possible.

	Visual system performance (for the image above):
		Far horizon FoV Polygon count Display Color depth Frame rate Graphics card		= 30 km = 50 degrees horizontal = 305,330 = 2560 x 1600 pixel res. with 4 subpixel AA = 32-bit = 60 fps = ATI Radeon x1900 Pro 512 MB DDR memory
	Terrain database characteristics:
		Imagery build time: Geometry build time: Database size:		= 1 hour, 38 minutes = 8 hours, 44 minutes = 9 geocells (266 km x 328 km)
		Extents:
		N38 W89 W86 N35
		Size on disk Terrain LoDs Texture LoDs Terrain post Source imagery		= 10.6 GB = 7 maximum = 8 maximum = 4 mpp = 14.6 GB
		Elevation coverage:
		Breakpoint survey data (submeter-resolution) Cassidy MOUT (4 x 4 km) 30.0 mpp shuttle radar topography over entire database (266 km x 328 km)
		Imagery coverage:
		0.125 mpp color Cassidy MOUT (4 x 4 km) 1.0 mpp color Ft. Campbell (32 x 42 km) 4.0 mpp color Ft. Campbell (30 x 55 km) 15.0 mpp color entire database (266 km x 328 km)
	Cultural features:
		14 photorealistic buildings with interiors and articulated windows and doors 26 geotypical buildings with high-resolution textures 3,662 geotypical volumetric trees 251 other point features, including street signs, electrical boxes, street lights, gas pumps, fences, sewer covers, flag poles, and utility cables 466 alpha-blended road linears 753 areal-feature edges for walkways, parking lots, and tarmac 300 runway and taxi point lights Dual linear runways at Ft. Campbell airstrip with FAA markings

Actual and simulated views of the Ft. Campbell MOUT site

The following set of images show Cassidy’s main street with the municipal build­ing in the center of the view. You can compare photographs of the actual Cassidy MOUT site on the left side with the VRSG screen captures of the simulated view on the right side that were taken within MetaVR’s virtual Cassidy MOUT site. The models of buildings and other structures are photorealistic; the models were created from a set of photographs of the structures in the area.

Photographs of the Cassidy site.	VRSG virtual-camera pictures of MetaVR's real-time 3D Cassidy site.

Click here to view real-time recordings of scenarios rendered in VRSG featuring this database and others. The media clips were made with VRSG's new real-time MPEG encoding feature.

This database is terrain database is available free of charge to all US Government agencies and contractors (for official use only) and requires VRSG version 5.0 or higher.