Focus on Simulation Scale
Achieving the necessary scale for Multi-Domain Operations requires a system level approach — addressing the network throughput, the simulation engines abilities, and the rendering engines technique and performance.
Network Performance
At MAK, we’ve refined the performance and pushed the boundaries of DIS and HLA to get the highest number of entities possible using these interoperability standards. Last year we developed Legion, a next generation scalability framework, to pave the way for simulations communicating about millions of entities.
For most applications, however, the network is not the limiting factor. Creating a compelling synthetic environment with the correct model fidelity, realistic geographic and environmental representations, with accurate entity behaviors is the limiting factor. So, this where we’ve been putting our energy.
Multi-Threaded Architecture
The most significant change in this release happens under the hood of VR-Forces, where we've used a double-buffering technique to enable multi-threading. Now, VR-Forces applications can use all the available processors in the machine to do the hard work of computing entity state updates and interactions.
Behavior Engine
Now that the network is optimized and we are getting maximum utilization from the processors, we need to simulate more entities. In the last release, we implemented a Behavior Engine and in this release we enhanced it so users can develop large and complex unit behaviors. Once made, and added to the scenario, a few mouse clicks can specify the existence and behavior of dozens of entities that follow the logic defined in the Behavior Tree. We developed, and included, several ground maneuvers to iron out the systems and now we're increasing the pace that we can add behavior of all types. We expect this to be a powerful feature for customers developing large and more complex synthetic environments.
First-Person Simulators
The other way to increase simulation scale is to add first-person simulators. To this end, we have simplified the VR-Engage configuration system to make it easier for customers to quickly connect devices, set up displays, and assign user roles to first-person experiences.
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