Open Data for large-scale geospecific 3D Simulation for Security Applications - A Case Study

Abstract

Abstract. This case study details the integration of official large-scale open 2D and 3D geospatial data of the city of Berlin, Germany, into the Virtual Battlespace 4 (VBS4) simulator for security applications. Realistic scenery with elements specific to the target area is obtained from a digital terrain model, true-ortho mosaic, and high-resolution land use/land cover layer rasterized from OpenStreetMap vector primitives. For the central Mitte borough with its government institutions and foreign embassies, almost 20000 buildings are prepared from textured CityGML data in an automatic multi-stage process. This process involves pre-wrapping the texture images, which are referenced by the semantic 3D models using non-canonical coordinates, and the rapid creation of compact atlases to reduce the bitmap count by three orders of magnitude. To ensure that the building meshes blend seamlessly into the terrain, vertical adjustment methods are discussed, and ground extrusion is implemented to approach the model’s base surfaces from below. Data import into VBS4 happens through its Geo interface for the terrain, ortho, and land cover, while the buildings are compiled into an add-on with a custom workflow that involves reprojection, collision component setup, and damage behavior configuration. During interactive convoy training in the virtual environment, a high recognition value compared to the real landscape could be attested visually. Simulation exhibited acceptable frame rates, but required considerable computing resources.