Enomalies was 1 of 4 companies awarded Phase I ONR SBIR Grant for the development of the Rapid Synthetic Environment Tool ($75,000.00)
Original Solicitation:
Rapid Synthetic Environment Tool for Virtual Battlespace 2 (VBS2)
Navy SBIR 2013.2 – Topic N132-130
ONR – Ms. Lore Anne Ponirakis – loreanne.ponirakis@navy.mil
Opens: May 24, 2013 – Closes: June 26, 2013
N132130 TITLE: Rapid Synthetic Environment Tool for Virtual Battlespace 2 (VBS2)
TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Information Systems, Human Systems
ACQUISITION PROGRAM: Squad Immersive Training Environment (SITE) (IV) and ADSUDM FNC CMP1509
OBJECTIVE: Develop tools for Marines and Sailors to produce and modify VBS2 compatible simulation terrain databases, including
building interiors, using government or commercial geospatial data or other means; e.g. Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR)
systems.
DESCRIPTION: VBS2 is a Commercial Off the Shelf (COTS) simulation system used by the USMC, the Navy and the Army. VBS2
comes with a tool called Visitor 4 that can take data such as Digital Terrain Elevation Data (DTED), Imagery, and Shapefiles and
output a VBS2 formatted database. This tool and other commercially available ones are much too difficult for nonsimulation
developers to use and some of them are expensive to license. We need a powerful tool to create VBS2 databases that can be used
by Marines with limited technical expertise. In addition to building databases, we need tools that will allow instructors and trainees to
modify terrain databases to reflect what they see on the ground. This is particularly important for the interior layouts of buildings,
which are not typically available from DoD sources. In addition, buildings are often damaged or destroyed in military operations and
the database should be able to rapidly reflect that.
PHASE I: Develop approaches to enable Marines and Sailors to rapidly build geospecific terrain databases for use in VBS2. In
addition to importing available geospatial data, the tools should allow warfighters simple methods to improve and tailor the databases
to their needs. This can be software applications, handheld hardware, or a combination.
PHASE II: Develop, demonstrate, and validate the capabilities identified in Phase I. Submit appropriate and necessary regulatory
documents for testing using human participants. Validate the ability to import geospecific terrain into VBS2 and tailor the terrain and
associated databases within a reasonable period of time through empirical evaluations with Marines with limited technical expertise.
PHASE III: The tools will either be standalone software or integrated into VBS2. It is expected that these tools will be used as part
of ADSUDM and SITE to build realistic realworld terrain for training.
In response to this request, Enomalies plans to develop and demonstrate a framework that will allow warfighters to rapidly acquire and edit geospecific terrain databases, including both building exterior and interiors. The output of our models will be in standard 3D format, which can be used in a variety of simulation and training software, including VBS2. We propose a two-pronged approach to achieve this goal. One is a novel hand-held 3D camera that supports many modes of operations, from passive stereo image to active 3D scanning, under a variety of operation conditions, from indoor to outdoor. The other is a novel reconstruction-by-recognition modeling pipeline. The outcome of our system is a visually complete 3D model consisting of common objects in a terrain database, such as houses, plants, street lights, mailbox, etc. These objects are also labeled with semantic information, allowing quick editing by novice users. Our team has combined experiences of over 25 years in hardware design and 3D modeling. We leverage our prior results in stereo matching, scene understanding, and model reconstruction to quickly achieve the technical goals by the end of this Phase I project.
The success of this project will address a major hurdle in military simulation and training: the rapid creation and editing of high-fidelity training databases by warfighters, not professional modelers, in the field. This is expected to enable more realistic and effective training for the ever changing environment in a war zone. In addition to military use, we believe our unique hardware and novel software will be attractive for many other applications in which 3D visualization is valuable, from entertainment to e-commerce.