Material Encoded Textures in Computer Generated Forces (CGF)

"Current Computer Generated Forces (CGF) systems use polygonal representations of theterrain, augmented with vector data, for terrain reasoning. Algorithms such as vehiclemovement and line-of-sight use this data to determine vehicle speed and orientation, aswell as for targeting and navigation. 3-D visualization systems, used in human-in-the-loop simulations, provide additional data in the form of geo-specific texture information,however. Humans can interpret this additional data and make decisions based on it.Current CGF systems cannot represent or reason on this texture data, leading tointeroperability and correlation issues between human-in-the-loop simulations and CGFsystems. M¿K Technologies, along with Terrain Experts (TERREX), Inc., propose todevelop a CGF terrain representation that supports the incorporation of pixel-level datathat augments the current polygon and vector representation. We will demonstrate thisterrain representation in M¿K's VR-Forces commercial-off-the-shelf CGF system. The results of this research will increase the fidelity of CGF terrain representations,allowing higher fidelity modeling of terrain reasoning and sensor simulations. It willalso improve correlation between CGF and man-in-the-loop simulations, since texture data iscurrently not used by CGF reasoning algorithms, but is used by humans.This research has high commercialization potential. At the end of Phase II,this research will have been integra