CGF Features

Entity tasking:

• Movement tasks for ground, surface, air, subsurface entities, such as Move to Location, Move to Waypoint, Patrol Along Route
• Aircraft-specific movement, such as Fly Altitude, Fly Heading, takeoff and landing
• Engagement tasks, such as Fire Cruise Missile, Lase Target, Fire at Target
• Communication tasks, such as Send Text Message and Send Radio Task.

Entity state management. Instantly set entity state, such as heading, altitude, speed, resources, rules of engagement, and formation.

Entity planning. Plans are created through the GUI and can include:

• All tasks.
• All set state commands
• Conditional tests, such as Entity in Area, Entity Altitude, and Entity Destroyed
• Looping
• Global commands, such as create entity, create tactical graphics, send entity plan.
• User-defined Lua tasks

Indirect fire. Artillery fire and ballistic missile fire controlled independently of entities.

Tactical graphics. Create points, lines, routes, areas, text, and other graphics for informational purposes and to guide entity behaviors.

Overlays. Organize tactical graphics in layers for easy management

Aggregate modeling:

• Preconfigured aggregates.
• Ability to add preconfigured aggregates
• Ability to create new formations
• True and psuedo-aggregate state modeling. That is, aggregates can be represented by all the individual members or by a single notional entity.
• Automatic aggregation and disaggregation of aggregate state to facilitate entity movement, combat engagement, and screen management.

Entity Editor for easily managing entity models and parameters.

OPD Editor for complete management of all entity parameters.

Spot reports and fog-of-war

Manage force hostility relationships

Launch chaff and flare counter measures

Launch tactical smoke

Environment. Set weather conditions and time-of-day.

Scripted tasks. Create new tasks using the Lua scripting language using basic task building blocks.

Scenario Merge tool to merge scenarios created by individual members of a project team.

GUI Features (from VR-Vantage)

• Animations and Entity Effects
• Contrails. A trailing effect for fixed-wing aircraft.
• Explosions. Animations for exploding ordnance.
• Fire and detonation lines. Fire events and detonation events are displayed with lines between the source and destination of the event.
• Flames. Flame animations are displayed for destroyed objects.
• Footprints. A trailing effect for humans.
• Missile trails. A trailing effect for missiles.
• Muzzle flash. Animation for ballistic guns, such as tank cannons and rifles.
• Shadows. Entities can cast shadows on the ground.
• Smoke plumes. Animation of smoke rising from a destroyed entity.
• Tactical smoke. Display smoke plumes created when VR-Forces entities fire smoke ordnance.
• Track histories. Display 2D or 3D ribbons that show the path a moving entity has taken.
• Wakes. A trailing effect animation for surface entities.
• Treadmarks. A trailing effect animation.

Performance

•  File caching. Terrain and model data is cached for quick loading.
• Instancing. Models can share resources such as geometry and texture to improve performance.
• Interest management. An implementation of HLA data distribution management that improves performance of simulation with many entities.
• Statistics viewer. Performance statistics. Includes OSG statistics and VR-Vantage-specific statistics.

Third Party Library Support

• DI-Guy characters. Human entities and some animals are displayed using Boston Dynamics, DI-Guy characters.
• GL Studio cockpits. Cockpit displays for vehicles and aircraft created with GL Studio.
• Silverlining environment. Lighting, clouds, moon, and sun are rendered using SilverLining software.
• SpeedTrees. High quality trees using SpeedTree software.

Information Display

• 2D entity labels. Name, entity type, and other entity information.
• 3D entity labels. Name, entity type, and other entity information can be displayed on an overlay panel.
• Compass display. A compass overlay shows the heading of the observer.
• Height-above-terrain lines. Displays the height of aircraft and tactical graphics vertices that are above ground level.
• Intervisibility. Visualizes line-of-sight relationships.
• Measurement unit customization. Users can choose the measurement unit used in the GUI and dialog boxes, such as meters vs. feet and kilometers vs. miles.
• Overlays. A way of organizing tactical graphics as if they were drawn on clear plastic overlays. VR-Vantage displays overlays sent from VR-Forces.
• Radio communications lines. Squawk indicators and communications lines are displayed when radio messages are sent between entities.
• Tactical graphics display. Displays tactical graphics, such as routes, waypoints, and areas, sent by VR-Forces or applications using the Remote Draw API.
• Visualization of feature data. Display lines and points to represent features.

Entity Modeling

• 2D icons. Entities are represented by MIL-STD 2525B icons. Users can chnage the icons used.
• 3D colorized model set. Cartoon-like models used in XR observer mode.
• 3D model set. Entities are displayed as realistic 3D models, with articulated parts.
• Aggregate visualization. Aggregate entities are visualized using translucent volumes. Aggregate type is represented by 2D icons.
• Emitter volumes. Displays electromagnetic emissions, such as radar, for entities in 2D and 3D.
• GUI-based model mapping. Entity types are mapped to VR-Vantage element definitions using the GUI rather than text-based configuraiton files.
• Icon scaling. Increase or decrease the size of 2D icons to reduce clutter and improve viewability of the display.
• Model scaling. Increase or decrease the size of 3D models to improve visibility of models at the expense of realism.

Observer Management

• Attach modes. You can attach the observer to entities so that it moves as the entity moves, maintaining the same relationship to the entity.
• Inset views. Secondary windows that let you view several parts of the simulation at the same time.
• Keyboard navigation. Navigate the virtual world from the keyboard using game-like keyboard mappings.
• Mouse navigation. Pan and zoom the view and move the observer using the mouse.
• Multiple observers. Configure multiple observers to quickly switch between different views and display configurations.
• Saved views. Users can capture observer views and save them for reloading in later sessions.
• Zoom observer. Magnify the view without moving the observer.

Terrain

• Contour lines. Contour lines show the gradient of the terrain.
• Grid lines. Terrain grid lines.
• Streaming terrain. Supports streaming terrain using osgEarth.
• Terrain agility. Create terrains using elevation, image, and feature data from many sources.
• Terrain coloring by elevation. change the color of the terrain based on its elevation.
• Terrain scaling. Exaggerate the scale of the terrain to display terrain relationships that might not be obvious in a realistic display.
• Wireframe display. Display the terrain polygons.
• Ground clamping. In cases where the VR-Vantage terrain is not well synchronized between exercise participants, entities can be clamped to the terrain.

Miscellaneous

• Audio effects. You can map WAVE files to entities and detonation events.
• Ephemeris model. The ambient lighting in the scene varies with the time of day and date.
• Persistent settings. VR-Vantage remembers many display settings from one session to the next.
• Remote graphics. VR-Vantage displays graphics sent by remote applications using the VR-Vantage Remote Draw API.
• Saved display engine configurations. Users can save and reload display engine configurations, which specify the windows, channels, and observers.
• Scenes. Collectively, the environment, time of day, and optionally, the terrain.
• Sensors. Simulates how the scene would look through night vision goggles or infrared.
• Stereoscopic display. Supports active stereo, anaglyphic stereo, and polarized stereo.
• Streaming video. Outputs a video stream of the display window in formats such as MPEG and GStreamer.
• Trajectory smoothing. Calculates a smooth transition between a dead-reckoned location and the actual location following an entity update.
• View control support. Change the observer view in response to remote messages that use the VR-Vantage Control Toolkit.

VR-Forces Toolkit

• Simulation API. The primary API for the back-end. Does all simulation processing.

• Remote Control API. Allows an application to control the simulation engine. The VR-Forces front-end uses the Remote Control API to communicate with the back-end.
• GUI API. Essentially the VR-Vantage API with additional classes for VR-Forces.
• Terrain API. Manages all terrain activity such as terrain intersections, paging terrain, streaming terrain.
• Many examples of how to modify the front-end and back-end.

VR-Forces GUI Versions

VR‑Forces 3D Front End Versions

B-Have Versions

B-HAVE Module for VR-Forces Versions

VR-Forces Migration Support

Migration Support

VR-Forces Migration Support Policy

This migration information provides a high-level review of changes to the major classes in the GUI API. However, it is not a comprehensive guide to changes. MÄK has decided not to release a comprehensive porting guide because we believe the upgrade experience is likely to be highly specific to individual customer use cases. As such, a comprehensive porting guide would be unlikely to fully explain the process no matter how much we wrote. Instead, MÄK has pledged to work with customers on a one-on-one basis during their upgrade process. That will include help through technical support, customer specific webinars and possibly on-site support and training. Please contact us a This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or through your MÄK salesperson or reseller for help with porting to VR-Forces 4.0.

Migrating from VR-Forces 3.x to 4.x

Before migrating from VR-Forces 3.12 to 4.x, you should understand the major areas that have changed:

• The front-end was completely redesigned. In VR-Forces 3.12, the 2D and 3D interfaces were separate executables. VR-Forces 4.x has a completely integrated 2D/3D graphical user interface (GUI) based on the VR-Vantage toolkit. As a consequence, the GUI API has changed dramatically.
• The Simulation API and Remote Control API have incremental improvements to support new features, but are largely similar to previous releases.
• The Terrain API has been updated to support the terrain agility features used in VR-Vantage and to support synchronization of the front-end and back-end views of the terrain.

Brochure

VR-Forces

User Guide

VR-Forces 4.1.1

Getting Started Guide Users Guide  Scenario Management Guide  Configuration Guide  First Experience Guide  Migration Guide Documentation Center B-HAVE Users Guide B-HAVE First Experience Guide

VR-Forces 4.1

Getting Started Guide Users Guide  Scenario Management Guide  Configuration Guide  First Experience Guide  Migration Guide Documentation Center B-HAVE Users Guide B-HAVE First Experience Guide

VR-Forces 4.0.4

Getting Started Guide  Users Guide  Scenario Management Guide  Configuration Guide  First Experience Guide  Migration Guide  Documentation Center

Bonus Materials

Marine Missile Defense Plug-in for VR-Forces 3.12

Marine Missile Defense is a small plug-in for VR-Forces 3.12, which adds an anti-missile missile system useful for ships. Additionally, this module adds an enhanced damage actuator that calculates cumulative damage from multiple hits, useful for any large entity types. The package includes pre-compiled binaries for Windows VC++8, full source code, a new simulation model set, and a demonstration scenario. More detailed documentation is included with the package.

MSVC++8.0

Webinar Recordings

What's New in VR-Forces 4.1

Join Jim Kogler, Director of COTS Products, as he enumerates the many new aspects of VR-Forces 4.1. Available in January 2013, VR-Forces 4.1 will focus on better scenarios and increased usability; features will include scriptable tasks using LUA, large and streaming feature data sets, bombs, mortars, ballistic munitions model, force independent entity creation, increased entity types, MSDL laydown and support, and enhancements to 3.12 features including tactical graphics and tactical smoke and hazard cloud displays.

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VR-Forces Tip & Tricks

You know VR-Forces is flexible. You know VR-Forces is powerful. But do you know how to get the most from MÄK’s simulation toolkit? Bob Holcomb, MÄK Solution Engineer, will do what he does best - offer solutions to popular customer questions. He’ll also offer tips and tricks that can help you maximize the power behind VR-Forces.

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Simulating Battlefield Communications - With MAK and Scalable Network Technologies

Information is the key to winning the battle. The competitive advantage of a well-informed war fighter is the goal of network-centric warfare (NCW). This doctrine impacts everyone in the M&S and C4I worlds, whether you are working on R&D, systems engineering, or C4ISR. For a realistic battlefield simulation, you need to model communications. MÄK and Scalable Network Technologies are bringing NCW to simulation with inter-entity communications, radio and communications network infrastructure modeling, and real world communication effects, like time delays and network constraints. At this webinar Dan Brockway, MÄK's Director of Technical Marketing, will show you how to create a rich synthetic battlefield environment using VR-Forces, MÄK’s simulation toolkit. He’ll detail how to create a simulated world where sensor models perceive the events taking place, entities use radios to send spot reports, and the receiving entities change their behavior in response to the communication.

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FAQs

VR-Forces – The Complete Computer Generated Forces Solution for Simulation

VR-Forces provides, flexible, on-demand simulation for use as a tactical leadership trainer, threat generator, behavior model testbed, Computer Generated Forces (CGF) application, and more. This FAQ provides an in-depth overview of the product functionality and architecture.

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Lua Tasking - Building better behaviors in VR-Forces

Lua is a scripted and lightweight programming language. It is widely used in the video game industry as the preferred way to extend game engines. Its popularity stems from its light-weight fast nature and its ability to bind to C++ toolkits, such as VR-Forces.

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B-HAVE - Brains for Human Activities in Virtual Environments

B-HAVE (Brains for Human Activities in Virtual Environments) is a plug-in for VR-Forces. Powered by Autodesk Kynapse, B-HAVE uses advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology to provide more complex and realistic behaviors and background traffic within MÄK’s VR-Forces simulation environment. Using B-HAVE, VR-Forces entities can analyze terrain topology, intelligently navigate through complex urban environments, automatically plan and follow paths through 3D building interiors, dynamically avoid collisions with obstacles or other entities, and flee from threats. B-HAVE allows VR-Forces users to create complex Pattern of Life (POL) modeling, where streams of people and vehicles follow context-sensitive patterns. These patterns add realistic background traffic, giving depth to simulations.

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Pattern of Life

While many of us may look out our car window on the way to work at a crowded city street and see randomness, there is really quite a bit of order beneath the surface. It turns out people – by their very nature – are quite predictable. We take the same car at the same time, on the same road, to work everyday. Most people go to work in the morning and return in the evenings; vendors open shops, buses follow schedules, and kids go to school all in a pattern. We wear winter coats when it’s cold outside, and we wear shorts when it’s hot. No one is a robot and many individuals have some degree of variation intheir daily routines, but when taken in aggregate, we pretty much do the same thing at the same times every day. Most of us pay no attention to the pattern in the car on the road to work ‐ it all looks like noise.

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