bitchin helicopter simulator
 

I just checked out a door gunner simulator built by BSC http://www.bsc.com/ at the I/ITSEC show in orlando yesterday. damn that thing was cool.

it's basically startours goes for a short chopper flight with full immersive virtual reality (using our displays). They have a gun that you grab on to and shoot enemies on foot or in boats or trucks. the gun has recoil and mass so it moves with the choppers movements--like swing from accelerations and shit. and the whole damn thing is on MOOG hydraulics so you pitch, roll, and yaw just like the bird.

i watched their demo from outside and they even let me fly the chopper hehe

the simulation is GOOD. like incredible detail and texture maps. the system is designed to be setup so you have two gunners and a pilot (or soemthing else) along with all the hardware (image generators, etc) and a generator all in one big tractor trailer.

Go here http://www.bsc.com/Index2.htm and click on services and you can watch videos and shit. maybe i get pictures today.

Matt

direct link to the video
http://www.bsc.com/AGSSIIVid2.asf

Hey, I used to be in simulation. I was at ITSEC a couple of years ago. What do you do? Did you have a booth there or were you shopping for something?

I have a friend who's does 3d design for Boeing and goes every year. He was with the Apache FCS program in Mesa, Az up until September. I'm guessing he'll apreciate a good helo sim.

Frank

An image generator for each eye?!? That is pretty cool. I was impressed with the display, then I saw it was head mounted. That blew me away. Our customer was looking for something to provide better 3d for our boom operator trainer on a KC-10. Looks like they should have waited 2 years.

It's sad... I meet all their requirements for a hardware engineer... .except the degree in E.E. Don't people realize that alot of us M.E. folks do electrical stuff as a hobby and also know what we're doing?

Thats bad ass.

hey Frank. some guys from boeing visited us today... forget who.

We make the head mounted displays for BCS. what they wear is basically our standard product plus the audio upgrades. it's a 1280x1024 60deg FOV LCOS display. 6 DOF tracking... not sure whose.

our demo this year is basically 3 grunts with grenades in an alley in baghdad with three MINI Coopers (??). One guy is on a leg joystick (similar to what you see here: http://www.powergridfitness.com/store/default.aspx ) with an orientation tracked HMD, another guy is basically a sniper holding binocs, and the third guy is on a fully walkable mobile HMD that can walk around the simulated area. pretty fun to play while we wait for visitors.

Matt

I just spoke with a friend of mine that's still on the KC-10 program. I guess the previous BOT (Boom Operator Trainer) mod did not meet expectations. A company called Cymstar is getting to contract to fix it. It might be worth it to have your marketing guy visit their booth. The govenment sunk big money into an Independence, though. I'm not sure their looking for another IG.

How do you do your head tracking on a fully mobile system? (pure curiosity, I'm out of the business) Are the IGs your own of do you integrate 3rd party into your HMD?

Oh, since your there you'll have to go over to the E&S guys and tell them your PC can do better. They love that.


Arkmage: List your automotive EE experience on you resume. I once got a job that was 50/50 SW and EE because I had rewired an old Jeep. I only had SW experience up to that point but I just needed something to show them that I could handle it.

arga, we only make high end head mounted displays... no IG, no tracking systems. but we do use a lot of intersense stuff. our fully mobile system is tracked by a setup made by WorldViz. it uses IR LEDs and IR cameras. worked very well for our demo.

I didn't see this in time, but we were pretty slammed most of the day anyway. Miss a deal with Cymstar but maybe make a deal with Boeing *shrug*

Matt

oh, heh, PS.

I got to try out the door gunner sim! that shit is HARD. holding on to the door frame while one-arming a phat weapon in a moving sim makes it a bitch to aim at running ground contacts.