The Electronic Sandtable: An Application of VE-Technology as Tactical Situation Display
Abstract
In future battlespace scenarios huge amounts of highly dynamic information will be available due to the technical development of sensor. communication and information systems. This flood of available information may lead to mental overload of the military commander and cause a wrong mental model of the battlespace situation. Therefore advanced techniques for supporting the military commander and displaying complex tactical situation data in a clearly understandable way have to be developed and evaluated. At the Research Institute for Communication, Information Processing and Ergonomics (FKIE) of FGAN a concept for preprocessing and visualizing incoming tactical data and three-dimensional geographical data has been developed. The concept includes the use of Virtual Environment-technology as a display system. This 'Electronic Sandtable (ELSA)" testbed, as described in this paper, is based on a semi-immersive display technology. It facilitates a plastic stereoscopic visualization of three-dimensional data. It has been developed to be used to simulate a sandtable as commonly used by the Armed Forces for tactical education and training. This paper presents the baseline concept of using VE- technology as an advanced tactical situation display. It is pointed out that, although the technology is commercially available, research in the area of ergonomics and human factors is essential for the advantageous use of such a system. The main ergonomic topics described in this paper include the stereoscopic visualization of the geographic and tactical data, the degree of abstraction and human operator interaction with the virtual scene on the Electronic Sandtable".
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Nov 01, 2000
- Accession Number
- ADP010693
Entities
People
- Klaus-peter Gaertner
- Thomas Alexander