WHAT IS PRESAGIS SEGen SERVER?
Presagis SEGen Server (SEGen) is a cost-effective server-based software solution that provides the ability to automatically construct and serve highly realistic synthetic environment databases generated from vector and elevation source data. SEGen is a stand-alone server product that provides support for various levels of imagery, raster materials, and 3D models up to 1M resolution. This cutting-edge solution is based on industry-leading technology that allows for procedural generation of high-resolution, highly realistic synthetic environments from various resolution GIS source data.
SEGen allows users to construct and load immersive and realistic natural or urban environments into their training or simulation applications at run-time. Leveraging cutting-edge procedural modeling methodology that combines vector and elevation with rules, textures, and models, SEGen allows users to quickly generate various levels of database resolution without the burden of deploying massive amounts of imagery or raster data. No imagery is stored on disk, saving time and cost in application development and delivery.
IS PRESAGIS SEGen SERVER AVAILABLE FOR SALE?
SEGen will be generally available early in calendar year 2012.
WHY ADOPT PRESAGIS SEGen SERVER?
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ELIMINATE THE NEED FOR DEVELOPING DIFFERENT DATABASES FOR SIMULATION AND/OR VISUALIZATION APPLICATIONS:
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With Presagis SEGen Server users can: Meet any Semi-Automated Forces (SAF), Computer Generated Forces (CGF), and/or visual application database requirements with a solution that procedurally models needed content/data at run-time.
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Ensure correlation between visual application and SAF/CGF at run-time with procedurally modeled data.
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DELIVER HIGHLY REALISTIC SYNTHETIC ENVIRONMENTS AT RUN-TIME AT SIGNIFICANT COST SAVINGS:
With Presagis SEGen Server users can:
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Leverage cutting-edge construction techniques and procedural rules to produce highly realistic and compelling representation of actual environments.
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Reduce data required and eliminate costs associated with acquisition of satellite imagery, data management, and storage.
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Reduce time necessary to deliver databases that meets customer requirements.
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Reduce labor burden and maximize usage of development team by focusing their time on enhancing/building out key areas of interest.
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LEVERAGE SCALABLE, OPEN STANDARDS-BASED SOLUTION TO GENERATE A SYNTHETIC ENVIRONMENT SUITED TO ANY DOMAIN (HIGH FLIGHT, LOW FLIGHT, GROUND):
With Presagis SEGen Server users can:
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Leverage procedural modeling methodology based on CDB to deliver up to 1M resolution.
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Eliminate bottlenecks and system tuning as data procedurally generated is automatically tailored to the needs of the simulation and/or visualization application at hand. Avoid consumption of unnecessary data.
WHAT ARE KEY BENEFITS OF ADOPTING PRESAGIS SEGen SERVER?
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REDUCE PROJECT RISK BY SPEEDING DELIVERY
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Automatically generate virtual environment databases in minutes instead of hours or days.
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Quickly make changes or add data to the CDB repository and avoid time-consuming recompiling of data by leveraging SEGen at run-time.
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Maximize development team time by being able to assign manual man-hours to key/target areas of database development – rather than spreading team across development of the entire synthetic environment.
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LOWER DEVELOPMENT & LABOR COSTS
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Decrease or eliminate expenditures on geospecific satellite imagery (that can easily run in the hundreds of thousands of dollars).
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Reduce data required and save costs on data management and storage.
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Deliver a highly realistic synthetic environment using fewer development resources.
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Leverage and focus development team expertise on key areas of development interest.
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MAKE THE IMPOSSIBLE POSSIBLE
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Eliminate limitations resulting from a lack of available data. Generate realistic environments ‘on-the-fly’ of any geographic area on the globe.
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Break cost and time boundaries associated with development of very large or highly detailed databases through procedural modeling of synthetic environments.
WHO CAN BENEFIT FROM PRESAGIS SEGen SERVER?
SEGen Server is a cost-effective server-based software solution for the low-cost generation of high-fidelity, highly realistic synthetic environments for training and/or the development or prototyping of R&D simulation applications. Key individuals that can benefit from this product in their work are:
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Project Managers
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Visualization Team Leaders
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Database Team Leaders that are engaged in programs and development of visualization and/or simulation applications.
WHAT IS THE TECHNOLOGY BEHIND SEGen?
PROCEDURAL MODELING OF SYNTHETIC ENVIRONMENTS
Presagis has been working on developing capabilities for procedural generation of highly realistic synthetic environments from minimal source vector and elevation data. The technology is used for the procedural generation of synthetic environments at run-time and for future offline publishing to other static visual, sensor, and/or SAF formats. Procedural Modeling combines the benefits of both the procedural generation of synthetic environments and a high degree of realism and detail.
Based on a set of rule libraries, Procedural Modeling functionality will provide the ability to create CDB databases with smooth, transitional edges and allow for customers to easily generate realistic, high-quality, spatially-accurate, geotypical synthetic environments with blended feature textures.
WHAT IS THE VALUE OF PROCEDURAL MODELING?
Procedural Modeling functionality allows for customers to easily generate realistic, high-quality, spatially-accurate, geotypical synthetic environments with blended feature textures.
WHAT ARE PROCEDURAL MODELING RULES?
Procedural Modeling Rule libraries are a collection of XML (.xml) files, each containing appearance and behaviour descriptions of a particular feature such as a forest, lake, etc. Rules define how textures are composed, which masks are used, and what special behaviors are used. Rules also defined vector enhancements of the source data, such as population of 3D trees and forest areas or along other features.
DOES SEGen WORK WITH CDB?
Yes. It is a requirement for SEGen to use CDB data.
WHAT COMMON PROBLEMS RELATED TO USING SATELLITE IMAGERY FOR DATABASE CREATION DOES PRESAGIS SEGen SERVER SOLVE?
COST
The cost of obtaining satellite imagery for a terrain database can often be very high; especially with large-area databases:
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SEGen generates synthetic imagery based on the CDB vector and elevation data, and therefore eliminates the need to incur the cost of purchasing satellite imagery. The realism of synthetically produced imagery from SEGen is very comparable to that of satellite imagery (at certain resolutions and dependent on the quality of the vector data) and, thus, provides an alternative to costly geospecific satellite imagery.
DISTRIBUTION RIGHTS
Another issue with using satellite imagery is that there are often limitations associated with the distribution of such datasets.
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With SEGen synthetic imagery is being created on-the-fly, as such, users have full rights to the display and distribution of those visual/sensor datasets.
IMAGERY QUALITY
Geospecific satellite imagery can often have artifacts (such as cloud cover, etc.) that can negatively affect the images of the area of interest and can impede the quality of the visual dataset. Other factors, such as atmospheric conditions, ground, fog and others, can also impede the quality of the collected imagery.
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These artifacts are not an issue in SEGen as the data is synthetically generated from controlled textures.
AVAILABILITY OF IMAGERY
Depending on the requested data, certain areas may be denied due to strategic or political influences.
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With SEGen, customers can generate spatially-accurate (from vector source) visual representations of areas that may be denied from imagery providers.
IMAGE PRE-PROCESSING
When covering large areas, it is often required for users to ‘stitch’ together multiple satellite images that could have been collected from various times of day, month, or year and do not relate to each other. In this situation, pre-processing is required to radiometrically balance the images, histogram equalize, blend, etc to get the images to appear as though they were derived from one continuous dataset.
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SEGen eliminates this problem by synthetically generating the content at run-time. As such, imagery is not cobbled together but generated automatically into one seamless visual.
MATERIAL CLASSIFICATION
Typically, if a user wants to use geospecific imagery with a sensor view, they would have to materially classify the geospecific imagery for the sensor textures. This process is time consuming and, depending on the quality of the classification, may not correlate to the original satellite imagery.
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As SEGen generates both material datasets and visual datasets (imagery), there is 100% correlation between the imagery and materials. This means that there is no need to separately ‘re-classify’ the imagery data generated by SEGen as one would with geospecific imagery saving both time and effort.
WHAT COMMON PROBLEMS RELATED TO USING SATELLITE IMAGERY FOR DATABASE CREATION DOES PRESAGIS SEGen SERVER SOLVE?
STORAGE SPACE
Although some may argue that storage is inexpensive, it can be very impractical to store terabytes of data in order to have content on hand to represent the globe.
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SEGen generates synthetic data from CDB vector and elevation at run-time, eliminating the need to store large datasets on a disk.
DATABASE DEVELOPMENT
Traditionally, visual and SAF systems required pre-compiled databases and, as a result, the time and resources to generate datasets prior to an exercise or event.
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With SEGen, data is generated at run-time, so there is no need to have pre-compiled databases. SEGen provides accurate regional representations (textures, models, etc) out-of-the-box and has divided the world into unique ‘Zones’ that represent a unique climatic and/or geographic area so there is no additional work or configuration settings required by the users. This means that accurate visual representations are achieved.
REALISTIC DATABASES
Geotypical databases can often lack the ability to represent the variability of the terrain surface in a realistic fashion. At times, these databases are described as ‘cartoonish’ and are distinguished by profound features with hard edges and repeating textures.
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SEGen leverages the innovative uses of texture blending techniques, masks, and scaling variations to produce generic terrain representation, without the repeating, tiling textures usually associated with geotypical terrain representations.