In 1998, Aerobel provided a turnkey realtime visual system as part of the upgrade of the Ship Bridge Simulator at Flanders Hydraulics in Belgium.
The 5-channel visual system now provides:
The 5-channel visual system now provides:
- a field of view of ~225 degrees
- high fidelity geospecific ports
- a 30Hz visual frame rate at a resolution of 1024x768 pixels per channel
- realistic sea with fully-responsive dynamic objects (eg ships & buoys)
- control of global sea state and locally-varying sea conditions
- control of time of day, sun angle & met visibility
- smooth 3-/6-dof dynamic ship motion with the 5Hz update rate from the host computer
- quadraphonic sound.
Aerobel’s visual system uses a commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) deskside SGI Onyx2 Infinite Reality computer & Centric’s COTS software tools. With Aerobel’s customised software, this provides the Customer with the following benefits:
- lower initial procurement cost & whole-life cost
- maximum flexibility
- protected software investment through the use of open format software
- significant growth potential (eg for increased database complexity and higher resolution displays).
Aerobel's Ship Bridge visual system incorporates key features such as:
- anti-aliased, fully-phototextured out-the-window views at high frame rates
- detailed ships/entities with smooth level of detail switching
- spatially-varying dynamic sea with control of global sea state and local amplitudes
- dynamic response of ships/buoys over whole sea
- bow waves & stern wakes and directional wakes for tugs
- dynamic components (eg lights, radars, cranes, lock gates)
- wind-induced effects (eg smoke/exhaust plumes & flags)
- changing ship signals automatically from day to night
- dynamic signals on-shore (controlled by an external signalling model).
Aerobel also provided:
- database converters to import data in a proprietary format into the COTS 3D modelling tools for the generation/modification of geospecific databases & their associated radar displays
- a test code to emulate the communications with the host computer.
Ship Bridge Simulator Upgrade for the Ministry of the Flemish Community
© Aerobel Defence Technology 2000
