An Environmental Tailoring System for the Modeling and Simulation Community

The Modeling and Simulation (M&S) community within the Department of Defense (DoD) is interested in providing realistic environmental data for various war gaming scenarios. Typically, data used for such exercises are mined from pre-existing archives of forecast data from sources such as the Master Environmental Library (MEL). Although scenarios retrieved from these archives are chosen to meet the requirements of the exercise, they may fall short. For example, it may be difficult if not impossible to simultaneously provide cloud cover over one part of the domain with clear skies over another for a particular period of time and geographic region.

As a result, tools are needed which allow M&S exercise participants the ability to alter the environmental database. Modification of the Synthetic Natural Environment (SNE) is needed in two forms: pre-exercise and run-time. Pre-exercise tailoring takes place when the selected environmental scenario does not exactly meet known exercise requirements. It may be known, for example, that heavy rain will be required in a cloud-free portion of the domain. Run-time tailoring is necessary when, during the exercise itself, one or more changes to the environment are required to meet training goals. For example, clouds which exist in the SNE may be hampering aircraft from taking off when their departure from the airfield is necessary for a subsequent part of the scenario. Here, the user is interested in "removing" clouds from a portion of the domain.

In order to allow such drastic changes to a naturally correlated database, algorithms have been developed which compute the required alteration to the SNE based on user selected modifications to one or more variables. In order to make the modification process understandable, a Graphical User Interface (GUI) allows the user to interact with the SNE data and visualize the results of a modification before applying it.

This paper will describe the development of the Pressure Field Modification (PFM) algorithm and its application in a pre-exercise and run-time mode. The GUI used to define, manage and apply edits to an SNE database will be shown. Finally, we will demonstrate the use of a synchronized visualization system that allows a user to view the results of a change to the SNE.