Okay, you’ve all seen the hype generated about our new streaming terrain capabilities. You’ve all heard how we built this terrain using a combination of raw source data and some small amounts of hand modeled elements. Recently we put together a really simple video showing off Oahu, Hawaii. Here it is.

The video is long - it's 28 minutes long to be precise. Even though it only covers a small area of the island, you may not want to watch the whole thing. If you are thinking of fast-forwarding around, here are some highlights to check out. I will organize my tour by timeline so you can jump around and notice the effects.

VT MÄK is pleased to announce the release of VR-Vantage 1.4.1. This release marks another milestone in our Open Streaming Terrain story by adding the visualization of streaming vector data.  VR-Vantage applications (like VR-Vantage Stealth or VR-Vantage IG) can now stream in point, linear and areal features from a compliant terrain server using the open standard Web Feature Service (WFS) protocol, and use those features to generate textured 3D geometry on-the-fly at run-time.  VR-Vantage applications can:

• Generate 3D geometry for buildings, fences, and walls by extruding polygons from geo-specific footprints (linear or areal features), and applying geotypical textures based on feature attributes
• Place pre-built 3D models representing trees, geospecific buildings, lampposts, etc., into the scene based on the locations and attributes of individual point features (“point feature substitution”)
• Automatically populate forests with trees, or populate roads with telephone poles, fire hydrants, etc., by randomly placing 3D objects within areal features, or along linear features.

Combined with our existing support for streaming elevation and imagery, these new capabilities allow you to very quickly visualize 3D environments that are both global in scale, and visually rich:  Just upload your source data to a compliant streaming terrain server such as MAK’s VR-TheWorld Server, configure your feature-to-geometry mappings using an XML-based “.earth file”, and tell VR-Vantage to connect.

When we released VR-TheWorld, we weren’t sure if the defense M&S community was ready for open streaming terrain - distributed interactive simulation has such a strong dependence on correlation. So making a terrain database that runs in all the systems and meets all the requirements is a big job. Not all systems are capable of on-the-fly terrain creation from terrain servers, like VR-Forces and VR-Vantage.

Lately, we are beginning to see more and more use cases for streaming terrain servers in the early stages of large projects. By hosting the GIS data, the foundational data layers (elevation, features, imagery), on a streaming terrain server, project teams are able to start simulating immediately. They can use the terrain agile VR-Forces to plan and execute scenarios months before the terrain databases are even built.  And because VR-Forces and VR-Vantage are terrain agile, they can switch to using the static terrain databases when they are finally delivered. Customers are finding that some simulation tasks are started and finished on the open streaming terrain without the need for a static database build.

With the release of VR-Vantage 1.4.1 comes the ability to visualize streaming features from Open Streaming Terrain Servers like VR-TheWorld. Check out the hundreds of thousands of buildings and millions of trees being served up on our Hawaii database. The island of Oahu has been chosen to demonstrate this capability and all you need to visualize it is a VR-Vantage application and an internet connection. 

Use any VR-Vantage application like VR-Vantage Stealth or VR-Vantage FreeView. Connect to our online VR-TheWorld Server (when the app starts a terrain chooser dialog appears with "VR-TheWorld Online - MÄK Earth.earth" already selected. Just click OK). Load a "saved view" to bring you directly to Hawaii (Observer Saved Viewe Panel -> Import and Replace Views -> Choose "hawaii-boston.osrx". Click on "Hawaii").

VT MÄK presented its ISR Lab demonstration at the 2012 Feria Internacional del Aire y del Espacio (FIDAE air show) in Santiago, Chile. We actually brought two ISR Lab set ups - one for the Latinmedia booth (our reseller in South America) and the other for the Centro de Modelacion y Simulacion (CEMSE) of the Chilean Army. The demonstration was customized to run a new scenario which takes place on a terrain database based on Antofagasta, Chile.

In the Latinmedia booth, the ISR Lab was being shown on a gigantic screen provided by Screen Innovations. The individual channels were arranged using a MediaWall from RGB Spectrum and then projected by two projectors from projection design.

The next major release of VR-Vantage (1.5 coming out Q3 2012) will let users visualize radio communications. Users of VR-Vantage Stealth, VR-Vantage PVD and VR-Vantage XR (and eventually VR-Forces and SimMetrics) can tell who's sending radio messages by their "Squawks". You'll also be able to see who they're communicating with via "Radio Communication Lines". 

A common question from people who are new to VR-Forces: “How easy is it to create new scenarios in VR-Forces?” It’s a good question to ask when you are evaluating CGFs. The answer is always: “It depends.”

There are obviously some very complicated scenarios you could dream up that would make scripting them quite complicated and difficult. That said, most scenarios are very easy to script. At the end of this post, you’ll watch a scenario with a helicopter flying over some mountains - I whipped this one up in about three minutes. It runs a bit faster than real time, so you can enjoy it in about one minute or so.

In our effort to continually make the user experience better, I wanted to show a small feature we are adding to VR-Forces 4.0.4  -- due out in June 2012 -- which allows users to choose what plug-ins to load when they start VR-Forces. This is a pretty simple feature that’s best described with a picture:

This week I am exhibiting at ATC Global 2012 in Amsterdam. There are 5000 attendees and 200 exhibitors here focused on Air Traffic Management - more specifically, the next generation Air Traffic Management systems being built in the US and Europe. 

So far, theres been lots of interest in our visualization and simulation interoperability solutions. I've seen several booths use Google Maps as an interim visualization tool because they didn't realize that there is a more flexible option - VR-TheWorld and VR-Vantage. 

Today I want to give a sneak peak of a coming VR-Forces feature. When we release VR-Forces 4.0.4 early this summer, users will be able to control aircraft in a new and intuitive way. 

Lots of people use VR-Forces to set up complex scenarios with aircraft. Historically this has been done with routes and waypoints. It means you must plan out your routes or set several waypoints, then build plans for your aircraft to move over the routes or between the waypoints. It’s a logical way to script air scenarios, but for pucksters who move a lot of aircraft around in real time, it’s quite complicated.