The architecture of the microprocessor-based graphics generator permits anyone or any simulator so equipped to connect to the net. This, combined with the distributed computing architecture of the net, provides an extremely powerful and robust system.
New or additional elements can be included simply by "plugging into" the network. Once connected to the net, simulators transmit and receive data "packets" from other simulators or nodes such as stations for combat-support or logistics elements , and compute their visual scenes and other cues such as special effects produced by the sound system. Because the data packets need to convey only a relatively small amount of information position coordinates, orientation, and unique events or changes in status , the communications load on the net and the increase in load with the addition of another simulator are both quite modest.
Also, where updating information is slow in coming from another simulator, its state can be inferred, computed, and displayed. Then, when a new update is received, the actual-state data are used in the next frame, and any serious discontinuity is masked by the receiving simulator's automatic activation of a transition-smoothing algorithm. Should a simulator fail, the rest of the network continues without its contribution. Thus, network degradations are soft and graceful. The prototypes and early experiments with SIMNET elements were carried out between , and the system was made operational in January But as examples such as the VLSI program suggest, support of federal agencies has also been directed toward seeing that the products of federal research funding get transferred to technologies in service of both national defense and the commercial sector.
For most of the period covered to this point—up to the end of the s—policy discussions about these goals—of seeing that research served national defense and that it ultimately benefited the commercial sector—were either kept rigidly separate or delicately balanced in a complicated dance.
With the end of the Cold War, a stronger emphasis was placed during the s on running a fiscally efficient military built on the practices of sound business and of making military procurement practices interface seamlessly with commercial industrial manufacturing processes. With pressure to reduce military spending applied by the Federal Acquisitions Streamlining Act of , the Department of Defense remodeled policies and procedures on procurement through DOD Directives Among the policies the new directives established was a move away from the historically based DOD reliance on contracting with segments of the US technology and industrial base dedicated to DOD requirements, moving instead by statutory preference toward the acquisition of commercial items, components, processes and practices.
In the new mandated hierarchy of procurement acquisition, commercially available alternatives are to be considered first, while choice of a service-unique development program has the lowest priority in the hierarchy. DOD components were directed to acquire systems, subsystems, equipment, supplies and services in accordance with the statutory requirements for competition set out in directive 10 USC Organizational changes were required to implement these changes.
Adapting technology development and acquisition to the fast-paced high technology sector of the US economy meant adopting simplified flexible management processes found in commercial industry, including the institutionalization of Integrated Product Teams, treating cost as an independent variable, and implementing a paperless procurement system of electronic commerce by the year Program managers were informed that this mandated change meant that military planners would work more closely with industrial partners in team fashion sharing information on designs and specifications.
In effect these changes, introduced by Secretary of Defense William Perry, have transformed military contracting units into business organizations. As we have seen, the DOD has been the major source of long-term funding for 3-D graphics and work on VR throughout their year history.
As a result of its changes in procurement and indeed its entire culture for contracting, the DOD will continue to be a major force in developing these technologies in the near future, both through DARPA funding for support of graphics labs at universities and through DOD funding of military projects. Directive An example suggesting the crucial role federal funding will continue to play in the future of visualization and simulation technology is provided by the growing synergy between the U.
For the last several years, the videogame industry has been one of the fastest growing sectors of the entertainment business. Developments in the entertainment industry such as those emerging from the partnership between Nintendo and Silicon Graphics produce such capabilities.
In a similar fashion, those engaged in the VR field have argued that VR's breakthrough to acceptance has depended on the dissemination of VR technologies in the entertainment market for videogames and video arcades. One of the brightest new players in that industry is Real3D of Orlando, Florida.
Project Name. Close Combat Tactical Trainer. Networked simulation system for training army mechanized infantry and armor units. It is composed of various simulators that replicate combat vehicles, tactical vehicles, and weapons systems interacting in real time with each other and semiautonomous opposing forces. Battle Force Tactical Training. Tactical training system for maintaining and assessing fleet combat proficiency in all warfare areas, including joint operations.
It will train at both the single-platform and battle group levels. Warfighter's Simulation Next-generation battle simulation for training Army commanders and battle staffs at the battalion through theater levels. It has a computer-assisted exercise system that links virtual, live, and constructed environments. Joint Tactical Combat Training System.
Joint effort by the Navy and Air Force to create a virtual simulation at the battle group level in which combat participants will interact with live and simulated targets that are detected and displayed by platform sensors. STOW is a program to construct synthetic environments for numerous defense functions.
Its primary objective is to integrate virtual simulation troops in simulators fighting on a synthetic battlefield , constructive simulation war games , and live maneuvers to provide a training environment for various levels of exercise.
The demonstration program will construct a prototype system to allow the U. Atlantic Command to quickly create, execute, and assess realistic joint training exercises. Joint Simulation System core. A set of common core representations to allow simulation of actions and interactions of platforms, weapons, sensors, units, command, control, communications, computers, and intelligence systems, etc.
Distributed Interactive Simulation. A virtual environment within which humans may interact through simulation at multiple sites that are networked using compliant architecture, modeling, protocols, standards, and databases. Department of Defense, Office of the Inspector General.
While its present incarnation is new, Real3D has a venerable history tracing its origins back to the first GE Aerospace Visual Docking Simulator for the Apollo lunar landings.
In , GE Aerospace began exploring commercial applications of its real-time 3D graphics technology, which led to a contract with Sega Enterprises Ltd. Sega was interested in improving its arcade graphics hardware so their games would present more realistic images. This spinoff of technology originally developed for defense contracts is not in itself new, but the next phase of the story points to the impact of the procurement reforms in creating a synergy between government and industry sectors of potential benefit to both the research and the industrial communities.
In the background are objects that could be tanks or chips on a board. The figure holds what could be a laser gun.
Just when the viewer begins to wonder,"Is this a video game? The figure there holds a lightning bolt as a weapon, but is otherwise a traditional helmet-clad soldier. Developments connected with companies like Real3D can be seen as seminal in the historical evolution of the Post-Cold War effort to create a seamless environment in which research work carried out for the high-end military projects can be integrated with systems in the commercial sector.
In , GE Aerospace was acquired by Martin Marietta, another leader in the field of visual simulation. Martin Marietta not only advocated expansion of the relationship with Sega, but also encouraged further research and analysis to look at other commercial markets, such as personal computers and graphics workstations.
In , Martin Marietta merged with Lockheed Corporation to form Lockheed Martin, and shortly thereafter launched Real 3D to focus solely on developing and producing 3D graphics products for commercial markets. Real 3D thus builds on more than three decades of experience in real-time 3D graphics hardware and software going back to the Apollo Visual Docking Simulator, experience in a variety of projects related to construction of real-time distributed simulations, and its considerable intellectual property, consisting of more than 40 key patents on 3-D graphics hardware and software.
These assets, together with its strategic relationships to Lockheed Martin, Intel, and Chips, positions the company well for getting high-end graphics from leading edge research environments onto the desktops of physicians, engineers, and scientists. The company profits from its role as a supplier of commercial videogame technologies developed by companies like Sega to the research community developing military training simulators.
But it is not just the 3D graphics capabilities that are being made more widely accessible through such developments. Intel is committed to advancing the capabilities of the PC platform; with its Pentium II processor with MMX technology, the corporation has launched an all-out campaign focused on bringing 3D technology to mainstream PCs. In July Intel with 60 hardware and software manufacturers in the arcade industry including Real 3D, Evans and Sutherland, 3Dfx Interactive, and Quantum 3D, joined in the Open Arcade Architecture Forum to encourage the development of hardware and software for open arcade systems through proactive market development efforts that ensure systems and software compatibility, while delivering arcade-game performance equaling or exceeding proprietary systems.
The Open Arcade Architecture OAA specification, which Intel announced in April , supports dual processor-based arcade systems, which allow for faster, richer games and provide additional processing power for networking, video and voice conferencing. Examination of the work and careers of individuals who have participated in both the military simulation community and the entertainment industry suggests paths through which the dissemination of research ideas across these seemingly different fields takes place.
For example, prior to joining Walt Disney Imagineering in , Dr. Eric Haseltine was an executive at Hughes Aircraft Co.
Haseltine joined Hughes in after completing a Ph. Haseltine has published in the fields of Sensory Physiology, Neuroanatomy, Flight Simulation, Training Systems Development, and Display Systems Engineering; and he holds a number of patents in laser projection and electro-optical imaging. At Disney Imagineering Haseltine is vice president and chief scientist of research and development of projects including advanced head-mounted displays, optical systems, wireless communications, user interfaces, paperless animation systems data security, and biomedical imaging.
Robert S. Jacobs, currently director and president of Illusion, Incorporated, offers a similarly illustrative profile. He has a B. Having headed up the design team at Perceptronics that worked on the original design of SIMNET, he has been a technical contributor to the majority of later, related training programs.
At Illusion Jacobs has directed the definition, development, and manufacturing of advanced technology training and simulation products including analytical studies, hardware design, software development and courseware production. SIMNET has been an incubator for the ideas and technology behind many current-generation video games. Consider the company description of WizBang! Software Productions, Inc. With this unique perspective, they continue to be at the forefront of the ever-evolving high-tech game industry.
Indeed among WizBang! Rosen also headed the design team for one of the first movie-to-computer game spin-offs: Stephen Spielberg's E. Rosen left Atari to manage the Image Generation Department at Singer-Link Flight Simulation, one of the early companies in the flight simulator business, which built such systems as the Apollo Docking Station and the DC8 flight simulator used in airlines around the world, and many others.
For Singer-Link Rosen developed virtual reality databases and advanced modeling tools for pilot training simulators. Andrew Johnston, WizBang! Along with M. Prior to that, while at the Boeing Aerospace Company in Seattle, Johnston managed a group of 45 engineers involved in research and development in advanced computer-image generation; he was a key architect of a real-time 3D computer-image generation system under contract with DARPA.
For my purposes an example of how such career trajectories can work in disseminating research ideas is illustrated by the work and career of Real3D senior software engineer Steven Woodcock, who has been lead software engineer for Gameware Development at Lockheed-Martin Real3D since January Woodcock began his career in the development of game simulations for Martin Marietta.
As noted above Martin Marietta contracted with Sega to build the Model 2 arcade platform. Woodcock contributed to this effort. From March -March Woodcock shifted his venue from military network simulations to the interactive game industry where he was lead programmer and oversaw all aspects of game development on the Sega-produced Model 2 arcade game Behind Enemy Lines , featuring a true 3D environment and use of AI.
Woodcock has noted that his previous experience at Martin Marietta on the NTB and ARGUS from in distributed applications, real-time simulations, and artificial intelligence has proven invaluable in the designing real-time, 3D, multi-player environments of games he has been working on since For that project Woodcock integrated a message layer based on the military Distributed Interactive Simulation DIS protocols, designed to support large-scale, many-machine, network connectivity.
On this project Woodcock implemented the first goal-based AI on the PlayStation using neural networks to provide an ever-learning opponent. If the career of Steven Woodcock illustrates the ways in which ideas, technologies, and personnel have flowed from military simulation efforts to the entertainment industries, doom II produced by Id Software, and falcon 4.
The shift in culture of the military reflected in procurement policies discussed above is also evident in new military approaches to developing critical thinking. Emblematic of this shift is Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Charles C. Krulak's directive Krulak wrote: "It is my intent that we reach the stage where Marines come to work and spend part of each day talking about warfighting: learning to think, making decisions, and being exposed to tactical and operational issues.
The use of technological innovations, such as personal computer PC -based wargames, provide great potential for Marines to develop decision making skills, particularly when live training time and opportunities are limited.
Policy contained herein authorizes Marines to use Government computers for approved PC-based wargames. General Krulak directed furthermore that the Marine Combat Development Command assume responsibility for the development, exploitation, and approval of PC-based wargames. With this incentive some Marine simulation experts from the Marine Corps Modeling and Simulation Management Office in the training and education division at Quantico, Virginia tracked down a shareware copy of the commercial game doom produced by Id Software, Inc.
This led to the adaptation of this game as a fire team simulation, with some of the input for the Marine version coming from Internet doom gamers employing shareware software tools. Instead of employing fantasy weapons to face down monster-like characters in a labyrinthine castle, real-world images were scanned into WAD files along with images of weapons such as the M16 a1 rifle, M squad automatic weapon, and M fragmentation grenades. The game was also modified from its original version to include fighting holes, bunkers, tactical wire, "the fog of war," and friendly fire.
In addition to training fire teams in various combat scenarios, the simulation can also be configured for a specific mission immediately prior to engagement.
For example, Marines tasked with rescuing a group of Americans held hostage in an overseas embassy could rehearse in a virtual building constructed from the actual floor plans of the structure. Users needed only to purchase version 1. The Quantico-based software could not run without the original commercial package, so no licensing violations occurred. Indeed, any personal computer owner with doom II can download the code for marine doom from the Modeling and Simulation Management Office's web page.
You too can become a military assault commando. The success of the doom II simulation rewrite led the Marines to look ahead to the next step in commercial war gaming. This from-the-ground-up development would eliminate all of the nuances of the other adapted games that are not particular to Marine combat. It is an application programmer's toolkit that makes possible networking of distributed simulations and VR systems. The toolkit complies with the Defense Department's DIS protocol, enabling multiple participants to interact in real time via low-bandwidth network connections.
VR-Link is designed for easy integration with existing and new simulations, VR systems, and games. In addition to its work in the defense community, the company's software has been licensed for use by several entertainment firms, such as Total Entertainment Network and Zombie Virtual Reality Entertainment, to serve as the launching pad for real-time, 3D, multi-user video games.
Spearhead can be played over the Internet and incorporates networking technology similar to that used in military simulations. Both technologies efficiently connect thousands of 3D simulations together on a computer network.
All simulations must be HLA-compatible by the end of The transition to HLA is part of a DoD-wide effort to establish a common technical framework to facilitate the interoperability of all types of models and simulations, as well as to facilitate the reuse of modeling and simulation components.
This framework includes HLA, which represents the highest priority effort within the DoD modeling and simulation community. State-of-the-art military DIS systems are now capable of running over 10, simulations simultaneously, networked together across far-ranging geographies.
Katz has described his vision provocatively in a chapter for the book Digital Illusion: Entertaining the Future with High Technology. The contract is for meu , a computer-based tactical decision-making game for US Marines which will also be released simultaneously as a commercial computer game.
Each player may assume a position in the command hierarchy of either US or opposing forces. Players will only be able to command US equipment. Additionally, players of platform-level simulations will be able to assume their appropriate positions in the hierarchy. The military version will add more accurate details about tactics and weapons, while the civilian game will be less demanding.
But both versions will allow multiple players to compete against each other over a local-area network or the Internet. While a number of military simulations and commercial airline flight simulators have been adapted to the commercial game market, falcon 4. Multiplayer mode supports dogfights with up to four squadrons of four Fs each.
As producer Gilman Louie explains, the falcon 4. The simulation has a highly accurate flight model and avionics suite that incorporates flight parameters conforming to real-world specifications. Weapon modeling is equally realistic and, except for omitting a few classified details, provides an amazingly accurate representation of weapons deployment.
The simulation is so detailed, in fact, that reviewers of the game report consulting a real-world "Dash 1" manual for the F when playing the game. The realism of falcon 4. In its current version, the game plays best on a computer with a processor of MHZ or higher.
According to Bonanni, falcon 4. Although the product features scripted Tactical Engagement missions as well as an Instant Action mode for newcomers, the heart and soul of the product is the dynamic campaign mode, where the player assumes the role of a pilot in an F squadron during a conflict on the Korean peninsula. The campaign engine runs an entire war, assigning missions to units throughout the theater. A list displayed either by priority to the war effort or by launch time shows the missions available to the player's squadron.
The player can fly any of these missions, with the freedom to choose air-to-air or air-to-ground sorties. Unlike games with pre-scripted outcomes the campaign engine allows story lines, missions, and outcomes to be dynamically generated. Each play of the game influences the next. If a player is first assigned a mission to destroy a bridge but fails, the next mission may be to provide support to friendly tanks engaged by an enemy that just crossed the bridge.
Networked video games such as falcon 4. It is hardly surprising that Bonanni not only helps adapt the video game to military training needs but also writes a regular column for the www. He is co-author of two best-selling books on falcon 4. Beginning with some basics on the game and the various gameplay options, falcon 4. The book is a serious no-nonsense manual, devoting separate chapters to laser-guided bombs and even the AGM Maverick missile.
Until the last two or three years these crossovers from military simulations and the entertainment industries have been unplanned and opportunistic. In December of the National Academy of Sciences hosted a workshop on modeling and simulation aimed at exploring mutual ground for organized cooperation between the entertainment industries and defense. The research center will enlist film studios and video game designers in the effort, with the promise that any technological advances can also be applied to make more compelling video games and theme park rides.
The idea for the new center, to be called the Institute for Creative Technologies, reflects the fact that although Hollywood and the Pentagon may differ markedly in culture, they now overlap in technology.
Moreover, as we have seen, military technology, which once trickled down to civilian use, now often lags behind what is available in games, rides and movie special effects. Michael Macedonia wrote in a recent article in Computer :. As a mass market, games now drive the development of graphics and processor hardware.
Intel and AMD have added specialized multimedia and graphics instructions to their line of processors in their battle to counter companies such as Nvidia, whose computer graphics chips continue breaking new performance boundaries.
In opening the new Institute for Creative Technology Secretary of the Army Louis Caldera said, "We could never hope to get the expertise of a Steven Spielberg or some of the other film industry people working just on Army projects. While putting more polygons on the screen for less cost is certainly one of the military's objectives at the Institute for Creative Technologies and in similar alliances, other dimensions of simulated worlds are equally important for their agenda.
Military simulations have been extremely good at modeling hardware components of military systems. Flight and tank simulators are excellent tools for learning and practicing the use of complex, expensive equipment. However, movies, theme park rides, and increasingly even video games are driven by stories with plot, feeling, tension, and emotion.
To train for real world military engagements is not just to train on how to use the equipment but how to cope with the implementation of strategy in an environment with uncertainties, surprises, and participants with actual fears. As Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Krulak's directive on "Military Thinking and Decision Making Exercises" emphasized, decisions made in war must frequently be made under physical and emotional duress.
The directive stated that the PC-based wargame exercises in peacetime should replicate some of the same conditions: "Imaginative combinations of physical and mental activities provide Marines the opportunity to make decisions under conditions of physical stress and fatigue, thereby more closely approximating combat. Early military simulations incorporated very rote behaviors. They did not capture "soft" characteristics well. An effort to go beyond this was launched in by the Institute for Defense Analyses in their effort to construct a computer-generated "magic carpet" simulation-recreation of the Battle of 73 Easting, based on in-depth debriefings of survivors of a key battle that had taken place during the Gulf War.
Going a step beyond the traditional "staff ride"--a face-to-face post-battle tutorial at the site itself in which a commander leads his staff in a verbal recreation of the skirmish--this tour of a battle site was a simulacrum of the war itself. Work on data gathering for the simulation began one month after the battle had taken place. The IDA brought the soldiers who had actually taken part and had them sketch out the battle. They walked over the battlefield amidst the twisted wreckage of Iraqi tanks, recalling the action as best they could.
A few soldiers supplied diaries to reconstruct their actions. Some were even able to consult personal tape recordings taken during the chaos. Tracks in the sand gave the simulators precise traces of movement. A black box in each tank, programmed to track three satellites, confirmed its exact position on the ground to eight digits. Every missile shot left a thin wire trail which lay undisturbed in the sand. Headquarters had a tape recording of radio-voice communications from the field.
Sequenced overhead photos from satellite cameras gave the big view. A digital map of the terrain was captured by lasers and radar. With this data a team at the IDA Simulation Center spent nine months constructing a simulation of the battle. A few months into the project, they had the actual desert troops, then stationed in Germany, review a preliminary version of the recreation. The simulacra were sufficiently fleshed out that the soldiers could sit in tank simulators and enter the virtual battle.
They reported corrections of the simulated event to the technicians, who modified the model. One year after the confrontation the recreated Battle of 73 Easting was demo-ed for high-ranking military in a facility with panoramic views on three inch TV screens at the resolution of a very good video game. The Battle of 73 Easting is an extremely accurate historical reconstruction of a battle whose outcome is known.
It set the standard of a future genre of training simulations, something like the Saving Private Ryan of staff rides. Although the cost of creating the simulation is not available, it was undoubtedly expensive.
As a computer simulation with programmable variables, however, the scenario could be replayed with different endings. Indeed the next logical step after creating this fantastically accurate simulation would be to use the data and behaviors of the simulation as inputs to a game engine, like marine doom , or a more current best-seller, quake.
By making the simulation reprogrammable, the staff ride could become an adaptable tool for battle training. Embedded simulations involving real global-positional data, information on opposing forces and their capabilities could be built into the M1 tank units, attack helicopters, or Fs themselves as real soldiers train for an impending mission right up to the hour of the engagement.
How might the interest in pursuing this line of development in new settings like the Institute for Creative Technology ICT proceed? At this early date we can only speculate. In light of the new military practice of forming product development teams consisting of military, industry and possibly academic partners, and in light of effort to merge military and entertainment projects for their mutual benefit, I would like to propose an imaginary scenario of teamwork involving elements from each of these sectors.
Several of the members of the new ICT work on constructing semi-automated forces and multiple distributed agents for virtual environments, such as training programs. Others in the ICT work on building models of emotion for use in synthetic training environments.
The work of professors Jonathan Gratch and Jeff Rickel are prototypical. Prior to the formation of the ICT these researchers had been working on the construction of intelligent agent technology for incorporation into state-of-the-art military simulation systems.
More interested in modeling training behaviors, they have not been particularly interested in developing "believable agents" for video games or film. The goal of one of their projects is to develop command and control agents that can model the capabilities of a human military commander, where commander agents must plan, monitor their execution, and replan when necessary.
We could imagine lots of potential collaborations with commercial videogame companies that would leverage the skills and knowledge of both commercial and academic partners interested in artificial agents and historically accurate "staff ride" training scenarios that build in uncertainty, fear, emotion, and a gripping sense of story and narrative. I find Atomic Games an interesting candidate. Its personnel and company history map the trajectory from military to commercial applications we have explored above.
Atomic Games is a company of ten persons founded in by Keith Zabalaoui. Today Atomic is a subsidiary of Microsoft Games. Zabalaoui worked on a space-based robotic retriever for recapturing astronauts, tools, or anything else that might become detached from the space shuttle. After the retriever project was canceled Zabalaoui shifted his activities full-time to what had been until then his recreation during breaks at the Center: a board game called atlantic wall with three boards set up in different rooms for the Allies, Axis and referees.
Zabalaoui started bringing his Macintosh computer with him to the game and between moves began writing the first v for victory game that has become the trademark of Atomic Games. Atomic Games' most successful attempt to build an historically accurate game is close combat 2: a bridge too far. The game has won many awards for its realism. In part this is achieved by the addition of sound and movie-like visual effects, but a key element is provided by models of the behavior of men under fire.
This human aspect of combat has been provided by advisors, such as Dr. Steven Silver, who is a combat psychologist. Whether or not this imaginary alliance between Atomic Games and AI researchers in the ITC is ever realized, my point is to illustrate how the Army's goals of leveraging technology for its own purposes from the film and video game industry at sites like this incubator institute might be achieved.
The military has contributed enormously to the development of the digital technologies that are transforming our world, but they have become a backseat player in the new digital economy. The interactive entertainment software industry that created these products did so with only about 70, employees.
Retail sales remained strong throughout the year, with each month outperforming the same month a year ago. In addition, unit sales increased by 33 percent, selling million units of PC and video games in the U. Through the first three quarters of , video game unit sales were up 31 percent, and dollar sales were up 21 percent.
Unit growth for computer games increased 22 percent and dollar sales increased almost 20 percent. What these figures suggest is that sufficient economic incentives exist alongside the policy and organizational structures I have been describing to fuel the continued rapid diffusion and improvement of military SIMNET technology through its fusion with videogame and film.
The Institute for Creative Technology seeks to merge the military's interests in interactive simulation technology with shared interests in technology of academics and the film industry. Such incubators of mutual interests in computing and communications technologies have been launched in other domains as well. At the outset I discussed developments related to ubiquitous computing, MEMS, and smart matter supported by a consortium of private companies and government funded research, particularly DARPA.
As an exercise in thinking about how such a world might develop, given events and programs currently in place, I have drawn an analogy to a parallel but closely related development within the military-entertainment complex.
I have also argued that in the course of that development a fusion of the digital and the real has taken place, and with it the disappearance of the boundary between fantasy and reality. The fact that the Campaign Engine driving preparations for F missions and tank maneuvers in future Bosnias and Serbias is the very same technology we use to engage our skills in Internet gaming is certainly suggestive. That it represents a fusion of the digital and the real is perhaps even more strongly indicated by the midterm report filed in August by Colonel Mark E.
Other combinations of simulation-live unit fusion are being tested as well. On September 1, Intel Corporation announced the first of a new series of network processors designed to solve bandwidth problems of the sort encountered in the LFP test.
The new processors comprise programmable, scalable switching and formatting engines and physical layer devices. In all, 13 different components of the new processors can be used to develop network devices for local and wide area networks LAN and WAN as well as Internet-based networks.
Such technologies are aimed at delivering real-time voice and video transmission over the Internet resolving the discrepancy between real world and simulated experience. Freeman, McCormack, T. DiFanti, and M. An equally impressive survey is the special issue on computational physics in Physics Today , October, See especially the articles by Norman Zambusky, "Grappling with Complexity," ibid.
Winkler, et al. Norton Wise, ed. See especially page 7. For a discussion see: Stephen R. Carr and R. England, Editors. XVII: pp. Sproul, and Robert A. Jim Kajiya, Ph. Gary Demos, who started several major computer graphics production companies and had a big impact on the introduction of computer graphics technology in the film industry, was also a graduate of the Utah program.
Sutherland, C. Mead, T. Durlach and Anne S. Mavor, eds. Virtual Reality: Scientific and Technological Challenges. See Nathaniel I. Also see, Frederick P. Drebin, L. Carpenter, and P. McCracken also noted:. While there have been incredible advances across many areas of science and technology, the new Craylink architecture for supercomputers, new improvements on the space shuttle, sheep cloning, - no advance has been more prolific, more ubiquitous, more wide reaching than consumer oriented entertainment developments.
Riding the Wave. Munich and Tel Aviv, Chapter 16, p Read all. See more at IMDbPro. Episodes Browse episodes. Top Top-rated. Photos Add photo. Top cast Edit. David McAlister Narrator as Narrator. Becky Ansell Self as Self. James Augustine Self as Self. Kirsten Beacock Self as Self. Sam Bishop Self as Self. Nick Bloom Self as Self. Peter Booth Self as Self.
Mark Broadbent Self as Self. Dave Calderwood Self as Self. Clive Carruthers Self as Self. More like this. Watch options. Storyline Edit. When they lose or win, two military historians take them through on the simulator what actually happened in the real battle. Documentary Action History War. Add content advisory.
Did you know Edit. Trivia Contestants are actually playing a modified version of Rome: Total War , a recently released strategy game produced by The Creative Assembly and published by Activision. User reviews 3 Review. Top review. Alia iacta est Four contestants are designated as 2 generals and 2 lieutenants and given an army to command in a computer simulacrum of a historical battle.
On the technical side everything is perfect. The computers doing the simulation are running the engine written by The Creative Assembly, which is behind the Total War series of computer games Shogun, Medieval and Rome. I can only dream about the hardware it must be running on, even 4 years later my quite modern PC doesn't make it look half as good! So far so good. My main issue with this program is that they set the contestants up to fall. The one criticism from the reprehensibly smug military experts which was made every week except on the rare occasions that the team doesn't fall into the carefully laid trap is that no-one took overall command of the four man team.
Surely it would have been more appropriate to call them General, Colonel and Lieutenants if you expected one to take overall control.
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