Graham Warwick/WASHINGTON DC
IVEX is testing a prototype of its AeroReality image generator, based on the Silicon Graphics (SGI) Onyx2 InfiniteReality graphics supercomputer.
The AeroReality is intended to be the first SGI-based image generator able to meet the highest commercial-flight-simulation training standard, described as Level D.
The Norcoss, Georgia-based company hopes to complete development by the end of the first quarter of 1998, and is already offering the system for commercial and military contracts requiring Level D performance. IVEX has completed a sample database with Level D scene content and calligraphic-lightpoint capability is "up and running", the company says. Bright, sharp, lightpoints are essential for Level D approval and IVEX is the first to exploit a calligraphic capability newly developed for SGI's InfiniteReality.
The company admits that it has had "teething problems", particularly in exploiting the SGI machine's ability to generate three- dimensional terrain. IVEX says that it has taken advantage of its previous VDS image-generator's ability to produce richly textured, but flat, terrain, rewriting that software for the SGI machine.
The AeroReality's texturing capability is now "working quite well", the company says, and work is under way to develop the weather and lighting effects required for Level D qualification.
Source: Flight International