virtual kismayo, somalia - metavr · virtual kismayo, somalia | [email protected] ... photo...
TRANSCRIPT
To meet a shifting focus of training and simulation needs by the U.S. military and its allies to the Horn of Africa, MetaVR™ has built a 3D virtual representation of the southern Somalia port city of Kismayo. The terrain is populated with hundreds of geographically specific culture models built from ground-level photographs taken on the streets of Kismayo. In addition to these geolocated and photographically specific models of buildings and other structures, several hundred other buildings were modeled by matching the structural footprints visible in the imagery as geographically typical models with culturally and architecturally accurate details.
The models are combined with 50 cm per-pixel Digital Globe (GeoEye-1) satellite imagery covering 1,017 sq km of the southern Somalia port city and are blended into 15-meter natural view imagery of all of Somalia with SRTM void filled elevation source data. This virtual terrain was built in MetaVR’s round-earth format for visualizing in the company’s Virtual Reality Scene Generator™ (VRSG™) and is available at no charge to customers with active software maintenance. The terrain database is an entirely self-financed venture by MetaVR.
MetaVR chose to build the Kismayo 3D virtual environment be-cause the city contains varied terrain representative of important training environments, from a built-up port to dense urban streets to a sparsely populated outer region that includes a commercial airport. Because of the highly detailed geospecific nature of the virtual Kismayo terrain, this database can be used for a variety of training purposes: unmanned vehicle (UAV) operators prac-ticing target identification, JTACs coordinating ground strikes, ground units participating in exercises of urban insurgent clashes, helicopter pilots practicing landing drills, amphibious operations, and littoral security missions. Actual geolocated structures can be used as landmarks rather than the typical use of maps.
Image on the cover: Real-time VRSG scene overlooking the urban density of MetaVR’s virtual terrain of Kismayo, Somalia.
Comparison of a street-level photograph taken in Kismayo with the corre-sponding modeled geospecific building rendered on the terrain in VRSG. See more comparisons on the last page.
Part of the workflow to produce the Kismayo virtual terrain: MetaVR Terrain Tools for Esri ArcGIS, commercial source imagery, publicly available photo of the peninsula of the port area, and MetaVR VRSG rendering of 3D terrain of the port peninsula. Photo courtesy of AU/UN IST.
capture the strategically and economically important port city of Kismayo from Al-Shabab in early October 2012. Al-Shabab, which already controlled large swathes of country, gained control of most of the city in 2006, and Kismayo became an economic hub to the militants. The charcoal trade, a major part of the city’s economy, grew substantially under Al-Shabab and became the insurgent’s most lucrative source of income. The ongoing, illegal charcoal trade has led to significant deforestation of Somalia. The charcoal is shipped to the Middle East by traders using small traditional dhow sailing vessels. Kismayo is still actively contested by the Al-Shabab and is routinely patrolled by AMISOM forces.
Real-time VRSG scenes of the port area with U.S. Naval vessels, Somali dhows, and other vessels.
Located in southwest Somalia in the Lower Jubba region, Kismayo is situated 328 miles southwest of Mogadishu and 143 miles south of Barawe, the stronghold of the Al-Qaeda-linked Islamist group Al-Shabab, which was raided by U.S. Special Forces in October 2013. With a population of approximately 200,000 people, Kismayo is the third largest city of Somalia. The African Union-United Nations Information Support Team, serving with the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) helped
Key areas of the virtual city such as the commercial district with the green arch and monument include not only geospecific build-ings, but photospecific signs and trees of species indigenous to the region (acacia, cassia and palm). Photographs were used as the basis for unique building textures such that individual build-ings are easily identifiable. Located within the urban setting are dense geospecific displacement camps, which include realistic textures of various material types common to the area. Such ma-terials are used on the makeshift huts and shelters that include open doorways and interiors. Every structure on the virtual port has modeled interiors, including stairways. Some 2,000 street-level photographs of Kismayo with GPS coordinates are avail-able to MetaVR customers as additional source information.
MetaVR is building models of all the major types of U.S. military ships, in particular ships and ground vehicles to support amphibi-ous operations. The ships contain a level of detail that supports first-person level realism on the ship exterior.
Several other sea vessels, ranging from skiffs, dhows, and fish-ing vessels, to major transport ships are placed along the port;
A set of Somali civilian, AMISON soldier, and Al Shabaab char-acter models are included with the database. The Al Shabaab characters have authentic scarf patterns on their uniforms that match actual photographs of the militants from Internet sources.
VRSG Scenario Editor was used to create multiple scenarios that are delivered with the terrain. One such scenario features US Special Forces with UAVs and AMISOM troops who identify Al Shabaab militants coercing local civilians to engage in the illegal charcoal trade. The Al Shabaab forces are tracked to a hut area on the outskirts of town that is reinforced with additional insurgents and technical vehicles. In Scenario Editor a signifi-cant amount of vehicular and human activity was added to the scenario to create realistic patterns of life.
Several other sea vessels, ranging from skiffs, dhows, and fishing vessels, to major transport ships are placed along the port; many more sea vessels are in the 3D model libraries delivered with the database Several sea vessels, ranging from skiffs, dhows, and fishing vessels, to major transport ships are placed along the port; many more new sea vessels are in the 3D model libraries delivered with the database. The dhows are modeled with com-mercial goods or charcoal for transport. Other commercial vehicle models built to use with this database include charcoal transpor-tation trucks which are specific to Kismayo and created using ground-level photographs, and donkey carts and minivan cabs. The trucks are modeled with and without charcoal bags or sacks of World Food Program (WFP) relief food.
Part of the workflow to produce the Kismayo virtual terrain: ground-level photo of a building, creation of the building model in AutoDesk 3ds Max, the resulting model in VRSG Scenario Editor behind placement of the donkey and cart, and finally the building rendered in VRSG as part of the Kismayo virtual terrain.
Kismayo terrain in Scenario Editor, in a scene featuring the travel path of charcoal transportation trucks.
The terrain was built with MetaVR Terrain Tools for Esri® ArcGIS®. Culture models were built with Luxology Modo and Autodesk 3ds Max modeling tools. For placing persistent cultural features on the terrain such as geotypical buildings, street ele-ments, vegetation, and rubble, VRSG Scenario Editor was used as part of the terrain workflow. Users can expand the Kismayo terrain with additional 3D terrain built from imagery and elevation data of other areas of Somalia or elsewhere in Africa, and rapidly build up culture with Scenario Editor’s drag-and-drop workflow, culture models delivered with the Kismayo terrain.
Details from the urban area.
MetaVR’s Kismayo database, built in collaboration with EdgedSign, is available free of charge in MetaVR’s round-earth Metadesic terrain format to MetaVR customers who are on active software maintenance and are US Government or NATO agencies or contractors (for official use only). The terrain requires a license of VRSG version 6.0 or higher.
The following set of images compares the ground-level photographs taken on the streets of Kismayo with the corresponding modeled building or other structure rendered on the terrain in VRSG.
Real-time VRSG scenes featuring examples of local shops and Somali insurgent characters.
MetaVR, Virtual Reality Scene Generator, VRSG, Metadesic, the phrase “geospecific simulation with game quality graphics,” and the MetaVR logo are trademarks of MetaVR, Inc. Metadesic is protected by US Patent 7,425,952. Esri and ArcGIS are registered trademarks of Esri. All other brand or product names are trademarks of their respective companies. Copyright © 2017 MetaVR, Inc.
For more information, contact [email protected] or scan the QR code to your mobile device.