RSC subsidiary, Night Readiness, LLC, recently had the opportunity to install the Virtual Terrain Board (VTB) at the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) Base Richmond.  The VTB installation was completed on March 12, 2015 and it became the second VTB system used by Australian Defence Forces.  It now serves as the main night vision goggle (NVG) training system for C-130J Hercules aircrew at the base, replacing the physical model of the terrain board which had previously been in place.

Night Readiness President and highly experienced NVG user, Steve Hatley, conducted several on-site training sessions in the RAAF Base Richmond classroom immediately following installation.  Local NVG instructors, who will primarily be teaching lessons based on VTB academics, were presented with the VTB capabilities and features available to them for the customization of lesson plans to meet their individual teaching styles.  The local instructors and pilots attending the training course were very receptive to the VTB for training and look forward to the possibility of acquiring additional VTB systems for other RAAF Bases.

The RAAF published an article entitled “Training devices to prepare the next generation” in the Royal Australian Air Force Newspaper (Vol 57, No 5, Pg 5) discussing VTB installation and the benefits of RAAF training device upgrades.  The Royal Australian Air Force Newspaper may be accessed at http://www.airforce.gov.au/News/Air-Force-Newspaper.

Night Readiness is a world leader in providing NVG simulation for complete NVG training designed to teach the capabilities and limitations of NVGs to all operators.  For additional information or to schedule a VTB demonstration, please contact us at 1-866-807-8698 or visit our websites at www.nightreadiness.com and www.rscusa.com.

RSC was invited to present at the US Army CERDEC Night Vision & Electronic Sensors Directorate (NVESD) Solutions Meeting to be held at Ft. Belvoir, VA in March 2015.  For the spring session, the NVESD sought out innovative technologies in several areas including modeling & simulation and sensor processing and correlation in a solicitation through the Rapid Reaction Technology Office (RRTO) Innovation Outreach Program.

Brad Colbert, Vice President of Engineering, will present at the meeting on March 25, 2015 at 3:50pm (EDT).  Brad’s presentation will focus on the application of RSC’s solutions for NVG/IR fused device simulation and stimulation to Army simulation and training programs.  The solutions discussed will involve open API and software for accurate sensor transformation to create fused simulated thermal responses and stimulated NVG & Human Vision responses for existing simulations.

RSC’s products, services and experience bring value to the DoD by providing easy integration into existing applications, leveraging technologies previously developed by RSC, and providing cost effective options for sensor simulation and/or stimulation capabilities into existing simulation based training.

RSC Vice Presidents of Products and Engineering, Kenny Hebert and Brad Colbert, respectively, will attend the NVESD meeting and will be available for any questions.  To schedule a private meeting with RSC to discuss our latest products and technologies, please contact Kenny Hebert by phone, (205) 433-9334, or e-mail at khebert@rscusa.com.

RSC Project Manager and Senior Engineer, Brett Chladny, will attend and present at this year’s Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) Technology Conference (GTC) to be held March 17-20, 2015 in San Jose, California. The GPU Technology Conference attracts professionals from academia, industry and government in an arena that fosters new ideas in the use of GPU for applications beyond gaming. This year, GTC is highlighting the growing revolution in deep learning that can affect every aspect of computing. In addition, GTC will offer 500+ sessions and hands-on labs covering a wide range of topics.

Brett’s specific topic will focus on real-time graphics and visualization in his presentation entitled, “Displacement Mapping: A New Method to Achieve Realistic Geo-Specific Feature Densities.”  RSC invites you to attend the conference and Brett’s upcoming presentation representing one of many complex projects in which RSC is involved. The presentation will be held at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center, San Jose, CA on Wednesday, 18 Mar at 4:00pm, Session S5235, Room LL21B. To learn more about the conference, please visit http://www.gputechconf.com/.  GTC Promo Code FF15S20 may be used to receive 20% off of the conference pass price.

ABSTRACT

Explore new techniques in identifying, representing, and rendering realistic number of geo-specifically placed features in synthetic environments. Adding 3D models to synthetic environments greatly enhance visual cues that enable the perception of depth, motion, and realism. However, constraints in hardware performance and budgets often limit the amount of 3D features in the scene. This session presents an innovative automated process that leverages geospatial data sources and GPU tessellation technologies to inject realistic numbers of features. A framework for extracting feature information from commonly available data will be discussed. We will also explore a new a library that uses the power of modern GPUs to achieve near constant rendering performance regardless of feature density.

Post Conference Update:  See Brett’s recorded presentation at this link:  http://registration.gputechconf.com/quicklink/4fW8Wnq.  Select “View Recording” to view the presentation.

Renaissance Sciences Corporation (RSC) is excited to be a part of the annual Interservice/Industry Technology and Simulation Conference (I/ITSEC) held in Orlando, FL from 1-5 December 2014.  RSC is proud to be presenting a paper authored by Brett Chladny, Kenny Hebert, and Brad Colbert titled “Simulating Realistic Light Levels in Next Generation Image Generators” that provides a description of current RSC research sponsored by the Office of Naval Research.  Mr. Chladny will be presenting the paper on Thursday, 4 Dec. at 9:00am in room S320F (Session #: 14233).

ABSTRACT

The dynamic range of modern day display systems have greatly improved over the past few years. However, they are still not capable of displaying the full intensity range that the human eye is capable of perceiving. The computational power of Graphical Processing Units (GPUs) that are incorporated into modern day Image Generators (IGs) have greatly improved over the past few years, particularly when operating on floating point values. Rendering the entire scene as accurate in-band radiance values enables sophisticated processing to be applied that can help compensate for the limited dynamic range of modern day display systems. The resulting realism can significantly improve training when high contrast scene content is present. Examples include landing on an aircraft carrier that is steaming into the sunset and spotting an entity that is in the direction of the sun. Furthermore, rendering light points using in-band radiance values improves training by providing pilots with realistic visual representations that can take the display’s limited dynamic range into account. This can be critical to training when displaying navigational, runway, and anti-collision lights is required. This paper shows results from a new experimental IG that incorporates both accurately rendering the scene using floating point radiance values as-well-as post processing the resulting values to compensate for the dynamic range of the display system. This processing is accomplished by mimicking various aspects of the Human Vision System while still maintaining the commonly required 60 Hz update rate.

RSC representatives will be present at the various booths to greet visitors and answer questions.  However, to schedule a private meeting with RSC and discuss our latest products and technologies, please contact Kenny Hebert by phone, (205) 433-9334, or e-mail at khebert@rscusa.com.