REAL-TIME PHOTOGRAPHIC BASED TERRAIN IMAGE GENERATOR WITH CAPABILITIES FOR 3D OBJECTS

THIS IS A SYSTEMS REQUIREMENTS/PRELIMINARY DESIGN STUDY WHICH WILL INCLUDE A DEMONSTRATION OF A NEAR REAL-TIME TRUE PRESPECTIVE TERRAIN IMAGE GENERATION SYSTEM. THIS SYSTEM WILL HAVE THE CAPABILITY TO INSERT STATIC OR DYNAMIC OBJECTS, SUCH AS BUILDINGS OR VARIOUS TARGET CLASSES, INTO THE DATA BASE. COMMERCIALLY AVAILABLE SOFTWARE, OPTIMIZED FOR THE HOST PROCESSOR, WILL BE EMPLOYED, AND BENCHMARK MEASUREMENTS TAKEN DURING THE DEMONSTRATION WILL BE UTILIZED TO DETERMINE THE EXTENT TO WHICH HARDWARE/SOFTWARE MODIFICATIONS WILL BE REQUIRED TO ACHIEVE REAL-TIME PERFORMANCE DURING PHASE II. THE INTENT UNDERLYING THIS APPROACH IS TO ACHIEVE A HIGH CONFIDENCE LEVEL IN THE PREDICTED PERFORMANCE LEVEL YET AVOID A HIGH SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT COST. A PROPRIETARY DATA BASE ORGANIZATION AND RETRIEVAL METHOD WILL BE COMBINED WITH A TIME INVARIANT INVERSE RAY TRACING ALGORITHM AND DEMONSTRATED AT A 2 HZ UPDATE RATE. A PHASE II SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATION DESIGN TO COST GOAL OF $300-500K HAS BEEN SET FOR A FULLY INTEGRATED, REAL-TIME SYSTEM WITH INTEGRAL PHOTO DATA BASE GENERATION CAPABILITY.