Fisheries and Marine Institute - Recreating an Historic Voyage
Centre for Marine Simulation uses Creator and Vega Prime.
Memorial University’s Fisheries and Marine Institute has a world-class reputation for excellence in education and advanced technology. As part of the University, the Institute offers diplomas, certificates, and vocational programs as well as undergraduate and graduate degrees. In addition, they also provide a vital link between the academy and the marine industry.
A significant portion of both the educational and industrial sides of the Institute’s operation is performed at its Centre for Marine Simulation (CMS). CMS is an applied research centre whose mandate includes training students and reacting to the changing needs of the industry. The team focuses on improving safety and efficiency in harsh environments, particularly ice management, maneuvering, and navigation.
Working with the world’s most advanced marine simulation technologies, CMS helps those in the industry to mitigate the risk of accidents, to accelerate training and to improve performance. They have the only hydraulic full-mission bridge in the world, and, starting in 2003, the CMS team has been working with Presagis solutions including Creator and Vega Prime.
Recreating An Historic Voyage
CMS’s hydraulic bridge is on a 6 degree of freedom aviation motion platform with screens that allow a 360 degree view. In January of 2009 CMS was approached by Newfoundland and Labrador’s Historic Sites Association to develop a simulation that would utilize the bridge in order to celebrate a historic figure.
2009 marked the 100th anniversary of Bob Bartlett’s voyage to the North Pole. Bartlett was a Newfoundlander who took explorer Robert Peary as close to the Pole as anyone had previously been. While there is some dispute as to whether Bartlett and Peary actually reached their destination, there is no argument that they navigated extremely hazardous water in a small wooden ship.
For the celebration, up to 9 people from CMS spent less than 2 months developing a simulation tour that allowed visitors to physically experience the ship’s 1909 voyage through treacherous waters. To give visitors the most comprehensive experience, CMS created a 360 degree geographical database that included the ice off the coast of Greenland, Battle Harbour Laborador, the heavy seas that Bartlett navigated as well as a model of Bartlett’s ship. And all of this was connected to their hydraulic bridge.
For the simulation, a local actor was hired to provide participants with the historical background for the voyage. Then it was onto the simulation. Explains Maria Halfyard, Manager of Applied Research and Industrial Projects at CMS, “After our actor had set the scene for their arctic expedition, he then took them to the bridge where they set sail on the MV Roosevelt with the full on-screen visuals. For the simulated voyage, both the graphics and the ship moved, which provided a greater interactive experience. We even included the vibrations and sounds that the wooden ship made when it hit ice. It was so convincing that some participants could not keep from screaming, and there were a lot of white knuckles on board.”
To create the simulation, Chris Connolly, Simulation Database Developer at CMS, used Satellite Radar Topography Data from NASA, digitized paper nautical charts for the depths, and data from old photographs for the buildings along the coast. Says Connolly, “This project was more artwork than precision training. There was more freedom in terms of accuracy, but I got to spend a lot more time making everything look good.”
Ship Modeling with Creator
Given the fact that Bartlett’s ship was built more than a century ago, there was not a lot of data to go on. To develop his simulation of Bartlett’s ship, Connolly and his colleague, Jody James, scanned historical photos and referred to some data held by local museums. He imported this information into Creator and then started modeling. Says Connolly, “The ability to use textures in Creator was a big help on this project. With it, I was able to achieve a highly realistic look for the model.”
In fact, Connolly is so impressed with the texture tools in Creator that he regards them as one of the solution’s biggest advantages. He says, “The greatest benefit in using Creator is all the texture tools. I have found there are so many things that I can do a lot faster than with other tools. For the hull of the ship, for example, what would have taken me a week to do before, I can now do with Creator in less than a day and get better results.”
That said, Connolly also has high praise for the overall impact that using Creator, on the Bartlett Simulation as well as on other projects, has had on his workflow. He explains, “Using Creator really helps my workflow. Typically, in CAD programs, I was used to using layers, but, now that I have been working with groups in a hierarchy, I can see that this is a much better way of organizing data.”
According to Connolly, “The hierarchical display is one of the biggest benefits of working with Creator. The ease-of-use for creating and selecting things and the fact that I can work on different elements of the model one at a time are both great. The organization is much more powerful.”
Working with Vega Prime
In addition to working with Creator, Connolly and the team at CMS also work with other Presagis solutions. For example, although they did not use Vega Prime for the Bartlett Project, they do employ it for much of their other work.
Their Vega Prime display has 4 screens running on one computer. Three of these screens simulate the 180 degree field-of-view, and the other screen can be set up in walk-around mode for an additional observer. This last screen is used to examine how a human interacts with the ship. In addition, the CMS team can set up a double channel that allows them to include a camera replica or security view in the simulation.
Says Connolly, “We develop our Marine system for a piece of hardware and then use our data to place the ship in Vega Prime’s world. This allows us to see how the ship would act realistically in a variety of environments.”
Connolly appreciates the integration between Creator and Vega Prime. “I really like being able to visualize what my source data looks like on the target system. Seeing in Vega Prime what I have developed in Creator is great. And, the fact that Creator has an updated viewer based on Vega Prime is very handy.”
Future Projects with Presagis Solutions
Connolly is excited by the prospect of using Presagis Solutions on other projects. Not surprisingly, he is particularly looking forward to working with Creator. He says, “I find that the organization of the hierarchy and the ease-of-use of the controls are very useful. Plus, the support guys are great. I certainly want to keep using Creator in the future.”
CMS continues to work on projects that involve wind tunnel testing on buildings. Although this might, at first, appear to be outside their area of expertise, they work with the premise that their ship simulator can be modified to show how wind can impact buildings. When they connect the simulation to their hydraulic bridge, it will replicate the experience of the building’s movement.
As for Celebrating Bartlett, the project had over 900 people take the virtual tour in 6 weeks. The Newfoundland and Labradour’s Historic Sites Association was thrilled with the attention and awareness raised by CMS’s simulation.