Using Commercial Game Technology for the Visualization and Control of Constructive Simulations

摘要

The adaptation of commercial game technology to the military domain has increased significantly in the past several years [Macedonia 2002]. The visualization of traditional military simulations using this game technology has garnered some of the most interest. However, a majority of the approaches for interfacing the two entail rendering a one-way visualization connection between the simulation and the game using an intermediary format such as Distributed Interactive Simulation (DIS) or High-Level Architecture (HLA). The approach described here presents the use of a simulation's native protocol to support a two-way interface that not only renders the simulation scenario in real-time, but also control of simulation entities through a 3D game-based interface. This effort seeks to address several existing challenges associated with using commercial game technology as a baseline visualization system, including scenario and terrain synchronization, validation, and authorability.