A User's Guide to the Terrestrial Visualization (TV) System.
Abstract
This document serves as a user's guide to the Terrestrial Visualization (TV) computer system. TV is a system of FORTRAN codes which can be used for realistic computer simulation of large scale terrestrial scenes. Independent modeling capabilities exist for terrain, vegetation, solid targets (e.g., tanks) and camouflage nets. These models are mutually consistent in that they can be merged into a composite scene. TV has the capability of generating, via preprocessors, models of terrain, vegetation, solid targets and camouflage nets and to store them on library files. Subsequently, at the user's command, selected models can be retrieved, shifted, rotated, scaled and finally merged into a scene. User specification of the source(s) of light and the camera (or eye position) then determines the scene which is computed by ray-tracing techniques with shading and optional shadowing as well. An animation capability is included in TV which allows the camera and selected solid objects to translate and rotate according to preselected paths. Hence a series of time-dependent scenes can be computed on a frame-by-frame basis. The final phase of the picture making process produces data in a string format which can be used to generate color images on a scan converter or a cathode ray tube. TV is currently operational on PDP-11/70 (UNIX system), IBM-360/75, and CDC6600 computers. (Author)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- May 01, 1980
- Accession Number
- ADA099907
Entities
People
- Herbert A. Steinberg
- Martin O. Cohen
Organizations
- Mathematical Applications Group