NPSNET and the Naval Postgraduate School Graphics and Video Laboratory

Abstract

The Naval Postgraduate School Networked Vehicle Simulator IV (NPSNET-IV) is a low-cost, student-written, real-time networked vehicle simulator that runs on commercial, off-the-shelf workstations (the Silicon Graphics IRIS family of computers). NPSNET-IV has been developed at the Naval Postgraduate School's (NPS) Department of Computer Science in the Graphics and Video Laboratory. It utilizes Simulation Network (SIMNET) databases and SIMNET and Distributed Interactive Simulation (DIS) networking formats. The DIS networking format is flexible enough to allow multiple players to game over the Internet. The availability of NPSNET-IV lowers the entry costs of researchers wanting to work with SIMNET, DIS, and follow-on systems. Without the contributions of the department's M.S. and Ph.D. candidates, the NPSNET project would be impossible to maintain and continue. The diversity of their interests accounts for the broad range of research areas within the project.

Gnu/Maverik: A Microkernel for Large-Scale Virtual Environments

“…Examples include DIVE (Carlsson & Hagsand, 1993), dVS (Grimsdale, 1991), NPSNET (Zyda, Pratt, Falby, Barham, & Kelleher, 1993), Superscape, and WorldTookKit. The advantage of a predefined representation is that a large number of "standard" capabilities can be provided as part of the system's design and implementation.…”

The NPSNET Sound Cube

“…The primary motivation of this research effort is to test the ability of commercially available sound equipment with Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) (International MIDI Association, 1983) to produce aural cues for use in the distributed virtual environment of the Naval Postgraduate School Networked Vehicle Simulator (NPSNET) (Zyda, Pratt, Falby, Barham, & Kelleher, 1993a, 1993bMacedonia, Zyda, Dratt, Barham, Zeswitz, & Brutzman, 1994. The reasons for using commercially available (off-the-shelf) sound equipment are 1) to investigate how commercial, off-the-shelf sound equipment can be used to enhance the auditory channel; 2) to ease standardization and portability of this research; and 3) to provide insights to those experimenting with similar off-the-shelf equipment.…”

EM-an environment manager for building networked virtual environments

“…With many single-user Virtual Reality(VR) applications being successfully implemented 3,12,13,10,17], Networked Virtual Reality i s n o w b e c o m i n g a hot topic. Networked Virtual Reality refers to virtual environments where multiple users connected by a network can share information with each other.…”