Date of Award

3-1993

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Department

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

First Advisor

E. Philip Amburn, PhD

Abstract

The Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) is developing a distributed interactive flight simulator, the Virtual Cockpit, using commercial graphics workstations and helmet mounted displays. The Virtual Cockpit communicates with other simulators via local and long-haul networks using the SIMNET protocol. The work reported in this thesis focuses on developing the terrain database for the synthetic environment and on rendering the pilot's view of the database. There are many different file formats for describing 3- dimensional geometric polygonal objects. An analysis of three formats, AFIT GEOM, the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) DRP, and Software Systems' Flight, is presented. Each file format is described, and their attributes are compared in a decision table. A series of C++ classes were developed to render the file format used by the terrain database. These C++ classes, which include classes for stationary and moving entities, and for textures, are discussed. A technique for increasing the rendering speed is also presented.

AFIT Designator

AFIT-GCS-ENG-93M-04

DTIC Accession Number

ADA262599

Comments

The author's Vita page is omitted.

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