Bohemia and Calytrix Connect

Bohemia Interactive Australia (BIA) and Calytrix Technologies are pleased to announce their recent cooperation to provide DIS and HLA simulation integration to the Real Virtuality synthetic environment, the game engine behind the successful Virtual Battlespace (VBS) series of products (www.virtualbattlespace.com). The new technology is to be demonstrated at the Calytrix Technologies booth (#2017) at I/ITSEC, to be held at the Florida Convention Center in Orlando, from November 28 - December 1, 2005.

VBS provides fully interactive, three-dimensional training systems with premium synthetic environments suitable for a wide range of military (or similar) training and experimentation purposes. Within the Real Virtuality engine, a participant views the virtual environment from the first-person perspective and is able to move, interact and otherwise operate as he or she would in real life. Participants may operate weaponry, drive vehicles, and fly aircraft within the simulation for any training or analytical purpose.

VBS1 is currently used by a number of military organizations worldwide, including the Australian Defence Force and the United States Marine Corps. Applications of VBS include collective training (eg. combined arms, MOUT), individual training (eg. helicopter loadmaster training, mortar training), experimentation and analysis, as well as terrain and 3D model visualisation and walkthroughs for AO familiarization and limited mission rehearsal. VBS2, an entirely new product currently under development and due for release in mid-2006, provides a greatly enhanced game engine and introduces a range of new features and improvements (www.virtualbattlespace.com/press_vbs2_iitsec.htm).

Using Calytrix SIMplicity® (www.simplicity.calytrix.com), Calytrix has partnered with the BIA development team to create an agile DIS, HLA and 1516 VBS Gateway; enabling participants immersed in the VBS Real Virtuality game engine to interoperate with existing live, virtual, and constructive simulations. In preparation for major joint/coalition training operations, the first application of the VBS Gateway will see VBS2 integrated with the US developed Joint Semi-Automated Forces (JSAF) constructive simulation environment, allowing VBS2 participants to be immersed in a much larger (battalion level or greater) training exercise.

Via the Calytrix VBS Gateway, the VBS2 integration with JSAF is fully bi-directional – VBS2 is a completely interactive three-dimensional front end to the constructive JSAF simulation, with support for photo-realistic terrain areas hundreds of kilometres in size. VBS2 is a cost-effective, flexible and proven companion product for any networked DIS or HLA environment.

The use of Calytrix SIMplicity’s MDA code generation solution ensures that the VBS Gateway can be rapidly repurposed for most DIS, HLA 1.3 and 1516 environments (including vendor RTI variations); providing a cost effective means to integrate VBS into your live, virtual or constructive environment.

A demonstration of the new VBS Gateway will be available at I/ITSEC 2005 in Florida at the Calytrix Technologies booth (#2017). For more information please contact either BIA at vbs@bistudio.com or Calytrix Technologies at info@calytrix.com. </section> </article>