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Project objectives are: to enable accurate, embedded assessments in virtual environments by integrating X3D, S1000D, SCORM standards, capturing performance data using SCORM, life-cycle managing assessment content and 3D graphics using S1000D in a Common Source Database., Presented at the 10th Annual MOVES Research and Education Summit 2010, 13-15 July.

U.S. Armed Forces are typically utilizing and paying for commercial proprietary licensed products to visualize geospatial scenes, which nevertheless are themselves derived from government-produced data. This is unsatisfactory. This thesis has developed an open-source, royalty-free method for generating full-coverage 3D globes using the Extensible 3D (X3D) Graphics International Standard. Specifically, this thesis designs and generates robust globe models developing an instance of full global coverage utilizing X3D-Earth. In order to show interoperability and "Mash up" capabilities, multiple formats are used, including DTED Level 0 and NGA-produced satellite imagery. Imagery and corresponding terrain datasets are preprocessed using image processing and terrain parsing software, creating the X3D-Earth quad-tree tiles into multiple level-of-detail (LOD) file archives. Finally, these pyramidal, locale scenes are grouped and connected to form an overall X3D-Earth globe. Preprocessing, processing and data storage are performed with the NPS Hamming Supercomputer. The result of this work is a methodology for generating X3D-Earth locales that is suitable for massive replication, optimization and reuse. Current results are promising and further work is warranted. The ultimate product is expected to further enable new tactical capabilities, provide direct end-user control of visualization-data pedigrees, and enable improved operational and navigational situational awareness for all deployed warfighters.

The Department of Defense (DoD) Network-Centric data sharing strategy for the Global Information Grid (GIG) is to XMLize all data. The goal of this strategy is to ensure all data is visible, usable and interoperable, when and where needed, to accelerate decision cycles. However, this XML-based data approach comes at the cost of limiting real-time network edge device connectivity to the GIG because they are seldom able to meet the necessary bandwidth and processing requirements due to XML's intrinsic nature of being verbose and often complex to process. This research explores a powerful and robust solution to XML's network depth limits by means of the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) proposed alternative XML format, Efficient XML Interchange (EXI). The EXI format removes redundant tags and values from XML documents and encodes numeric content in a binary format. This format delivers significant file size savings and processing efficiencies compared to existing practices. The evolution of XML's path to EXI is summarized based on the results of the XML Binary Characterization (XBC) working group and the W3C's design points of XML. Followed are recommended steps for EXI development and enterprise integration, focusing on a public open source licensing philosophy. EXI algorithms are described with detailed explanations, Java code samples, and part-task test XML documents. Experiments are conducted evaluating the effectiveness of EXI for DoD tactical use and is followed with a recommended optimal EXI configuration. Several predictive models of EXI's performance are presented to enable potential EXI adopters a measurement tool of expected EXI benefit for various XML domains. This research concludes that for XML-based data, a doubling of bandwidth potential is achievable and CPU burdens minimized when EXI is applied. Additional findings indicate that traditional binary data formats converted to an XML format can be smaller than their native binary format after the applicat

In large measure, the vision of making it easier to create and use 3D spatial data has been achieved through The Extensible 3D (X3D) Earth project. This project created a standards-based 3D visualization infrastructure for visualizing all manner of real-world objects and information constructs in a geospatial context. The ability to archive models using stable commercial tools and noncommercial international standards ensures that 3D work can remain accessible and repeatable for many years to come. In this presentation we shall describe how we leveraged the NPS Supercomputer 'hamming' to defray the huge investment involved in the project through server-side preparation of content, interlocking/addressable URL schemes, ability to add new X3D Earth content, ability to efficiently mirror resources, streaming of relevant X3D Earth data, etc. over high-performance networks such as CENIC.

Recently, a great deal of attention has been given to the use of Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGS) for both gaming and military applications. The revenue generated by MMOGs and the effect that they have on the network infrastructure has resulted in significantly more developmental resources being applied to commercial MMOG technology than for military distributed virtual (DVE) development. All DVEs share a common set of characteristics, and additional requirements exist for the interoperability of military DVEs. It is possible to exploit these similarities to take advantage of developments in the supporting technologies of commercial MMOGs. Specific capabilities of interest include scalability for large numbers of players, capacity for large amounts of network traffic, portability across operating systems, and adaptability to connect diverse codebases, network protocols, and data formats. Project Darkstar is a Sun Labs research project, which has developed an open-source middleware for MMOGs. This thesis has produced and tests a MMOG server, which interconnects heterogeneous simulators in a DVE using the Project Darkstar middleware and locally developed network gateways. The performance of the system and the character of the network traffic it generates are analyzed. Initial test results warrant further development and eventual deployment.

Different agencies and different nations are not able to securely communicate and share structured information due to differences in security policies and data formats. The current evolution of security and data policies is not solving this fundamental problem. Document-based message-centric XML security can provide satisfactory security within a diversified communications framework between traditional and nontraditional partners by utilizing existing Web standards for XML canonicalization, XML digital signature, XML compression and XML encryption. Vulnerabilities related to the exchange of cryptographic technologies are minimized by strictly adhering to open-standards technology. This approach thus resolves multi-partner trust challenges in regards to using another entity's equipment, software, or policy requirements through the proper adoption of standards-based structured data and alternative cryptographic algorithms. Exemplar results demonstrated in this thesis show that XML Security is a feasible approach for operations that include multiple agencies and coalition partners. Alternative solutions are also available using proprietary technologies, but such approaches lock participants into commercial contracts, prohibit distribution and provide suspect capabilities. Therefore, they cannot attain interagency or international acceptance. Such methods involve the use of unique or proprietary message formats with customized encryption and compression algorithms that are not available for broad scrutiny by open source communities. Closed approaches cannot gain group trust. This thesis specifically investigates XML standardization methods for various categories of unclassified data to provide secure information exchange among a wide audience, e.g. multi-agency task force or multinational coalition partners. Using an XML document-centric approach is a helpful organizing principle for this problem that provides levels of security consistent with common business practices

Broad needs for digital models of real environments such as 3D terrain or cyber cities are increasing. Many applications related to modeling and simulation require virtual environments constructed from real-world geospatial information in order to guarantee relevance and accuracy in the simulation. The most fundamental data for building virtual environments, terrain elevation and orthogonal imagery, is typically acquired using optical sensors mounted on satellites or airplanes. Providing interoperable and reusable digital models in 3D is important for promoting practical applications of high-resolution airborne imagery. This paper presents research results regarding virtual-environment representations of geospatial information, especially for 3D shape and appearance of virtual terrain. It describes a framework for constructing real-time 3D models of large terrain based on highresolution satellite imagery. This approach is also suitable for underwater bathymetry. The Extensible 3D Graphics (X3D) Geospatial Component standard is applied to produce X3D Earth models with global scope. Efficient rendering, network retrieval and data caching/removal must all be optimized simultaneously, across servers, networks and clients, in order to accomplish these goals properly. Details of this standard-based approach for providing an infrastructure for real-time 3D simulation merging high-resolution geometry and imagery are also presented. This work facilitates open interchange and interoperability across diverse simulation systems and is independently usable by governments, industry, scientists and the general public.

The Geospatial Component of the X3D Standard suffers from some deficiencies that prevent its wider adoption. This paper addresses two of these deficiencies. The first problem is that in order to reduce spatial jitter content must be built with regionally defined GeoOrigin nodes. This approach is fine for localized regional geospatial data visualization requirements, but fails for accurately viewing data in a global context or for combining content with different GeoOrigins. The second problem is the limited options for providing terrain data to the browser for rendering. The GeoLOD node is not the optimal solution for allowing the X3D browser to render terrain data in a high performing manner. This paper presents solutions to these problems for consideration by the Web3D community.

3. ABSTRACT Introduction to Extensible 3D (X3D) Graphics (MV3204) and Advanced X3D Graphics (MV4205) are a pair of well-established courses with a custom textbook, an X3D example archive, annotated slide-sets, and the X3D-Edit authoring tool. This case study reports on lessons learned from producing 62 sessions totaling over 37 hours of video instruction. Topics include how to prepare and present video sessions for each lesson, recording and production techniques, building a video website, and teaching to remote students while recording. Most importantly we show the feasibility and repeatability of recording classroom video sessions with minimal post-production requirements, thus reducing video-production labor costs significantly. We also demonstrate the ability to use open-standard and open-source NPS-produced software to create a satisfactory course website. This report summarizes the entire production software to create a satisfactory course website. This report summarizes the entire production process ranging from proper preparation of course materials to pre-production, classroom presentation, speaker recording, screen capture, digital production, and post-production of video sessions. Detailed workflow diagrams, production checklists, conclusions and recommendations for future work are also included.

Globalization, despite its many positive attributes, also brings complex security challenges. Climate change, pandemics, energy and food scarcity, and trans-national terrorism compel us to think about security in a new way, to develop better understanding of global systems, and to forge stronger collaborative efforts for conflict prevention and stabilization. The safety of ports and strategic waterways are affected by globalization. The majority of the world's population lives within a few hundred miles of oceans, and the preponderance of global trade travels by sea. Globalization effects are key influences in A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower, the 2007 strategy published by the US Navy, Coast Guard and Marine Corps. The document emphasizes long-term relationships and raises the consideration of the prevention of war on a level equal to consideration of the conduct of war: 'We believe that preventing wars is as important as winning wars.' -- p. ii.

In the summer of 2008, the Commandant of the Marine Corps (CMC) released a message to all Marines and Sailors detailing plans to revitalize U.S. naval amphibious competency. Current responsibilities in Iraq and Afghanistan have significantly reduced available training time causing overall amphibious readiness to suffer. In response, this thesis evaluates 3D visualization techniques and other virtual environment technologies available to support these mission-critical training goals. The focus of this research is to modernize the Expeditionary Warfare Demonstrator (EWD) located aboard Naval Amphibious Base (NAB) Little Creek, Virginia. The EWD has been used to demonstrate doctrine, tactics, and procedures for all phases of amphibious operations to large groups of Navy, Marine Corps, Joint, Coalition and civilian personnel for the last 55 years. However, it no longer reflects current doctrine and is therefore losing credibility and effectiveness. In its current configuration, the EWD is limited to a single training scenario since the display’s ship models rely on a static pulley system to show movement and the terrain display ashore is fixed. To address these shortfalls, this thesis first recommends the usage of the wireless communication capability within Sun’s Small Programmable Object Technology (SunSPOT) to create robotic vehicles to replace the current ship models. This enables large-group visualization and situational awareness of the numerous coordinated surface maneuvers needed to support Marines as they move from ship to shore. The second recommendation is to improve visualization ashore through the creation of Extensible 3D Graphics (X3D) scenes depicting high-fidelity 3D models and enhanced 3D terrain displays for any location. This thesis shows how to create these scenes and project them from overhead in order to modernize the gymnasium-sized EWD into an amphibious wargaming table suitable for both amphibious staff training and operational planning. Compli

This paper describes four candidate X3D extension nodes: Camera, Shot, Movement and OffineRendering. An X3D lexicon for camera movements is defined so that individuals directing virtual cameras in X3D can directly apply terms that film directors and cinematographers understand. This approach greatly simplifies the technical tasks involved in crreating precise camera animations and setting up still images for digital photography. Further, candidate methods are examined for implementing Depth of Field for focus control. Moving beyond the typical clumsiness of Viewpoint control can enable authors to create compelling still and moving images from X3D scenes.

XML has become a popular representation format for data, both in modeling and simulation and elsewhere. However, XML's design choice of a text-based format also makes XML data files much larger than binary files, making XML languages difficult to use in bandwidth-constrained military applications. This limitation has resulted in several ad-hoc attempts to make XML more compact, each of which tends to be incompatible with the other. Efficient XML Interchange (EXI) is a World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Working Draft for the compact and efficient representation of the XML infoset. EXI is designed to be generally applicable to all XML documents, and lays the foundation for a unified format for compact XML document representation. This paper presents compactness results for several popular modeling and simulation XML file formats, including Distributed Interactive Simulation (DIS), Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) and Extensible 3D Graphics (X3D). Recent commercial and open source EXI implementations are also described.

Data sharing is today's principal Information Technology challenge. All sectors--commercial, government, academic, and military--seek improved information exchange to achieve operational benefits, whether in the form of greater profits, improved situational awareness, intellectual advancement, or ability to respond to threats endangering respective interests. Nations and organizations within and across nations have set forth policies to promote greater data sharing, but often without empowering or enabling change agents to introduce measurably better capabilities. While progress is being made in some quarters, in others there is almost a counter-reaction where organizations are closing in on themselves, perpetuating traditional closed pockets of valuable information, even if sometimes having the appearance of adhering to the new policies. The advances are coming in fits and starts, resembling chaotic self-organizing systems, but with no overriding pressure to bring about incremental adaptive improvements. This paper describes an evolutionary management approach that addresses this fundamental failure in many current programs to achieve greater efficiency in data sharing. We advocate adoption of corresponding policy guidelines by the DoD., Presented at the AFCEA-GMU C4I Center Symposium "Critical Issues In C4I" held at George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia Campus on 20-21 May 2008. Document includes briefing charts (29 slides, title same as paper). The original document contains color images.

Almost all flight simulators are centered on the problems that can occur during flight, whereas airport ground traffic problems are seldom addressed and are growing considerably. A number of precautions have been directed by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to overcome these challenges, such as pilot training and adding taxiway indicator signals to help pilots follow specific paths when taxiing. Further work is needed. This thesis simulates the problem of Ground Traffic incursions. Discrete Event Simulation (DES) and the Viskit tool are used to build two scenarios describing the takeoff and the landing maneuvers including potential ground incidents. It also presents the different techniques used to build 3D graphics models for the airplanes and the airport environment using Extensible 3D (X3D) graphics. After running the simulation a number of times with different parameters, collected data support basic analysis and potential conclusions. This approach demonstrates a proof-of-concept capability worthy of future work.

The business drivers within managed care are mandating that physicians have point-of-care access to medical reference data, patient specific data, formularies, treatment protocols, and billing/coding information. One emerging technology that has the potential to provide this access with little economic investment is the mobile Personal Digital Assistant. The authors address a variety of wireless technologies and security concerns regarding real-time access to patient data. The family practice staff at the Naval Hospital Lemoore explored and contrasted the capabilities of commercially available PDAs, wireless interfaces, and medical software applications to ascertain their value within the Military Health System. A production-ready interface between the Composite Health Care System and the Nutrition Management Information Server demonstrates the potential for eliminating the difficulties associated with documenting patient encounters and capturing charges. Survey tools generate a requirements standard for deployment of this technology within the Military Health System on an enterprise-wide scale with a hybrid approach to packaging based on functionality. The authors recommend the Military Health System embrace this technology as a means to realize its vision of best value health services.

The future of U.S. Naval Operations can be described by a simple system of requirements and constraints. Increasing the diversity and scope of mission requirements, while being constrained by decreasing budget resources, requires some form of equalization to maintain a constant rate of successful mission fulfillment. The solution to this system can be found in unmanned vehicle development. The most recent revision of the Navy Unmanned Undersea Vehicle (UUV) Master Plan outlined the need to develop a cost-effective, flexible program by maximizing modularity and commonality of UUVs. This thesis investigates the convergence of three main areas of UUV development; mission flexibility, modular control systems, and hardware in-the-loop testing and analysis. This work also evaluates the feasibility of a potential solution to support those objectives. Hardware-in-the-loop simulation and testing of embedded systems is a proven method for effectively testing complex systems, helping to reduce the risks of developing or deploying an ineffective costly system. An innovative glider design by the University of Toulon, France is the subject of this study. Unlike most rigid-hull gliders, the scalable free-flood volume of this vehicle holds the promise of carrying significant payload as long as overall buoyancy remains neutral. The research and development described in this thesis utilizes an existing planning and simulation tool, combined with an improved low-cost embedded-system robot controller, to test and evaluate a new free-flood, long-range gliding underwater vehicle. This proposed solution utilizes both open-source hardware and software solutions to design a prototype gliding underwater vehicle. Further work is needed to demonstrate the efficiency and effectiveness of this design.

In a net-centric environment, data, tools and people operate in a distributed network. A key research question is whether a software framework can become so usable and intelligent that integration of web services can be done on-the-fly as self-integration. Given data, software agents and supporting software infrastructure, web services integration on the fly means that human coding is not required to integrate web services into a Web Service Architecture. This thesis explores a generic, flexible, scalable, usable and intelligent web services architecture framework that enables sharing and integration of data and tools on the fly. This software framework is a key enabler for systems of systems architecture in a net-centric environment. The envisioned Web Service Architecture Intelligent Framework (WSAIF) is applied to the Modeling, Virtual Environments and Simulation (MOVES) domain. Specifically, the framework is applied to provide the capability to search and retrieve visualization models and their matching behavior models in a collaborative environment. This thesis elaborates on the design, implementation, deployment and test results of web services for the Scenario Authoring and Visualization for Advanced Graphical Environments (SAVAGE) archive, which is a set of web-based 3D graphics models plus corresponding agent-behaviour models. SAVAGE web services can perform both "find" and "get" operations for models in the archives. SAVAGE web services operations can be composed to form business processes. These business processes can be expressed using modeling techniques such as Web Service Business Process Execution Language (WSBPEL). Future capabilities include semantic activities using Web Ontology Language for Services (OWL-S). The study and comparison of various modeling techniques that enable integration, orchestration and adaptation of composable web services is mentioned. The design and implementation approach matches industry best practices for information arch

This research evaluates the production of three dimensional (3D) clouds for geospatial viewing programs such as Google Earth, NASA World Wind, and X3D Earth. This thesis took advantage of iso-standard X3D graphics and X3D Edit in conjunction with manually produced image textures to represent 3D clouds. While a 3D geospatial viewing might never completely characterize the current state of the atmosphere, a sufficiently realistic virtual 3D rendering can be created to present current sky coverage given adequate satellite and model data. Various visualization demonstration results are presented that can be rendered and navigated in real time. Further research and development is needed to match a cloud typing model output with a particular method of 3D cloud production. Data-driven adaptation and production of cloud models for web-based delivery is an achievable capability given continued research and development.

The Marine Corps' Maritime Prepositioning Force (MPF) marries fly-in troops to their gear in an expeditionary environment. The arrival and assembly operation underneath this larger umbrella of MPF Operations proves itself a somewhat chaotic, definitively complex and dynamic logistics operation. From the moment the offload of the ship or ships begins when equipment and rolling stock exit the ships, until it ends as using units sign for their intended equipment, all personnel involved in this process--drivers, assistant drivers, heavy equipment handlers, crane operators, equipment managers--and all equipment involved present a flurry of activity that must be effectively managed, tracked, and optimized. Modeling, Virtual Environments, and Simulation, or MOVES, tools, aid in providing such capability. The creation of a Discrete Event Simulation (DES) using the open-source tool Viskit enables MPF planning, training, and analysis in its ability to portray the effects that size, amount of personnel support, and time have on the operation. Scenario Authoring and Visualization for Advanced Graphical Environments (Savage) comprises an archive of extensible three dimensional (3D) models that, when tied to the DES in an Extensible 3D (X3D) Graphics environment, enable the animation of the simulation, and when connected to real-world tracking data of the offload, allow for real-time visual tracking of this logistics process, creating a Common Operating Picture (COP) for the Arrival and Assembly Operations Group (AAOG).

Extensible 3D (X3D) graphics is a collection of open-standards that define a system that integrates network-enabled 3D graphics and multimedia. X3D applications are real-time, interactive, animated systems that can run stand-alone or in networked virtual environments. This tutorial will focus on a commonly used subset of the complete functionality that is encoded in XML. X3D has three encodings XML (.x3d), Classic VRML (.x3dv), and Compressed Binary (.x3db). During the tutorial, the participants will learn hands-on how to build an X3D world, while getting a detailed understanding of the capabilities of X3D. Specific topics include animation using interpolators and sequencers, scripting, prototypes for extensibility, and a software-visualization case study. We will use the new cross-platform X3D-Edit authoring tool. Participants will also be given the latest X3D Software Development Kit (SDK) which contains a wide variety of free + commercial plug-ins, authoring tools, and content.

X3D is the ISO-standard scene-graph language for interactive 3D graphics on the Web. A new course is available for teaching the fundamentals of 3D graphics using Extensible 3D (X3D). Resources include a detailed textbook, an authoring tool, hundreds of example scenes, and detailed slidesets covering each chapter. The published book is commercially available, while all other course-module resources are provided online free under an open-source license. Numerous other commercial and open resources are available for X3D, which also serves as an interchange format. The supported course has been taught for many years, successfully introducing masters' students to the principles and techniques of 3D graphics without requiring programming experience. This course and module appears to be ready for undergraduate use. Expressing 3D within the domain of Extensible Markup Language (XML) for the Web is novel and has the potential to open up computer graphics to many new practitioners. This combined resource is intended broadly support computer graphics education and skills for web authors.

The Distributed Interactive Simulation (DIS) protocol has long been used in military simulations, but no widespread open source C++ implementation has been made available to date. We have written an open source implementation in C++ and Java called Open-DIS that we believe will result in a less duplicated effort in creating DIS simulations. The Open-DIS Java and C++ implementations were created from an XML template language, and other language implementations can be created as needed. The C++ and Java implementations are capable of representing the data contained in protocol data units in DIS format, and the Java implementation can in addition represent the data in XML or Java object serialization formats. An XML schema for the XML format is also provided. The project is royalty-free, open source and has a non-viral Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) license. We describe the approach taken in creating the implementation, the outlines of the implementation, and the community established for its maintenance and improvement.

The needs for digital models of real environment such as 3D terrain or cyber city model are increasing. Most of applications related with modeling and simulation require virtual environment constructed from geospatial information of real world in order to guarantee reliability and accuracy of the simulation. The most fundamental data for building virtual environment, terrain elevation and orthogonal imagery is acquired from optical sensor of satellite or airplane. Providing interoperable and reusable digital model is important to promote practical application of high-resolution satellite imagery. This paper presents the new research regarding representation of geospatial information, especially for 3D shape and appearance of virtual terrain, and describe framework for constructing real-time 3D model of large terrain based on high-resolution satellite imagery. It provides infrastructure of 3D simulation with geographical context. Details of standard-based approach for providing infrastructure of real-time 3D simulation using high-resolution satellite imagery are also presented. This work would facilitate interchange and interoperability across diverse systems and be usable by governments, industry scientists and general public.

X3D is the ISO-standard scene-graph language for interactive 3D graphics on the Web. A new course is available for teaching the fundamentals of 3D graphics using Extensible 3D (X3D). Resources include a detailed textbook, an authoring tool, hundreds of example scenes, and detailed slidesets covering each chapter. The published book is commercially available, while all other course-module resources are provided online free under open-source licenses. Numerous other commercial and open resources are available for X3D, which also serves as an interchange format. The supported course has been taught for many years, successfully introducing masters’ students to the principles and techniques of 3D graphics without requiring programming experience. This course is now ready for undergraduate use. Expressing 3D graphics modeling within the domain of Extensible Markup Language (XML) for the Web is novel and has the potential to open up computer graphics to many new practitioners. This combined resource is intended broadly support computer graphics education and 3D skills for web authors.

Data sharing is today's principal Information Technology challenge. All sectors—commercial, government, academic, and military—seek improved information exchange to achieve operational benefits, whether in the form of greater profits, improved situational awareness, intellectual advancement, or ability to respond to threats endangering respective interests. Nations and organizations within and across nations have set forth policies to promote greater data sharing, but often without empowering or enabling change agents to introduce measurably better capabilities. While progress is being made in some quarters, in others there is almost a counter-reaction where organizations are closing in on themselves, perpetuating traditional closed pockets of valuable information, even if sometimes having the appearance of adhering to the new policies. The advances are coming in fits and starts, resembling chaotic self- organizing systems, but with no overriding pressure to bring about incremental adaptive improvements. This paper describes an evolutionary management approach that addresses this fundamental failure in many current programs to achieve greater efficiency in data sharing. We advocate adoption of corresponding policy guidelines by the DoD.

The idea is basically to get people to answer these four little big questions: 1. What excites you about current metaverse technology? 2. What concerns you about current metaverse technology? 3. What will be most the surprising impact of metaverse technology on society within the next decade? 4. What barriers will metaverse technology never overcome?

The initial X3D Earth Technical Requirement Workshop called together leading experts to determine a broad set of technical requirements that will be necessary to construct an X3D Earth. This workshop was held 14-15 November 2006 at the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) in Monterey, California, USA. The main goal in the creation of an Extensible 3D (X3D) Earth will be achieved by Web3D Consortium members who are preparing to build a standards-based suite of software tools usable by governments, industry, scientists, academia and the general public. X3D mappings of world terrain, cartography and imagery will be made available for use in any scene, making it easy to geospatially reference and share X3D models. Open standards, the Web architecture, utilization of the Extensible Markup Language (XML) and open protocols will be leveraged throughout. Both commercial and open-source software codebases will be able to utilize these best practices and contribute to these shared assets. The goal of this technical requirements workshop was for participants to identify and prioritize the technical requirements, available capabilities, open challenges and strategic partnerships needed for a Web3D working group to execute this ambitious project. Emphasis was placed on extensibly adapting existing resources and in cooperation towards achieving shared goals, especially with other open geospatial organizations and standards. These workshop results document participant contributions, next-step activities and goal milestones. The workshop concluded that X3D Earth is feasible and that the effort can be started now. Many resources are already available, yet work will be needed to make them compatibly available. No showstoppers were discovered; a nice surprise after so many diverse inputs. Finally, lots of collaboration and coordinated work are needed to proceed successfully in order to build a web-services infrastructure and develop a server-side specification to enable X3D Earth., Workshop held at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA on 14-15 Nov 2006. Contributor presentations vary in form, some as papers, some as briefing charts. The original document contains color images.

The Autonomous Unmanned Vehicle Workbench (AUVW) is an ongoing project at NPS that allows rehearsal, real-time control, and replay of diverse autonomous unmanned vehicle (AUVs) missions. The AUVW increases the situational awareness of operators while allowing operators to learn valuable insights in a robots performance before, during, and after a mission. This thesis examines a variety of strategic authoritative plans for autonomous vehicles to determine functional mission requirements that autonomous vehicles are expected to be performing in the near future. Excellent agreement on tactical needs and requirements was found among these diverse documents. A series of exemplar missions corresponding to specific requirements are presented as a way to explore and evaluate different tactical capabilities. These missions are then compared to the current capabilities of the AUVW by planning, running, and evaluating them in the workbench. Although the AUVW is a powerful tool it still lacks some functionality to make it tactically usable. Nevertheless, perhaps two thirds of the necessary capabilities are already supported in the workbench and further capabilities can be feasibly integrated. The result of this work is a roadmap for future work to add functionality so that the workbench can thoroughly perform user tasks in all mission areas.

DoD has much to gain from Web 2.0 and the Ajax paradigm in open source. The Java language has come a long way in providing real world case studies and scalable solutions for the enterprise that are currently in production on sites such as eBay.com (http://www.ebay.com) and MLB.com (http://www.mlb.com). The most popular Ajax application in production is Google Maps (http://maps.google.com), which serves as a good example of the power of the technology. Open Source technology has matured greatly in the past three years and is now mature enough for deployment within DoD systems. In the past, management within the DoD has been reluctant to consider Enterprise Level Open Source Technologies as a solution, fearing that they might receive little to no support. In fact, the Open Source Business Model is entirely based on first developing a broad user base then providing support as a service for their clients. DoD Modeling and Simulation can create dynamic and compelling content that is ready for the challenges of the 21st century and completely integrated with the Global Information Grid (GIG) concept. This paper presents a short history of Model View Controller (MVC) architectures and goes over various pros and cons of each framework (Struts, Spring, Java Server Faces), which is critical for the deployment of a modern Java web application. Ajax and various frameworks are then discussed (Dojo, Google Web Toolkit, ZK, and Echo2). The paper then touches on Ajax3D technologies and the use of Rez to generate 3D models of entire cities and goes on to discuss possible extended functionality of the Rez concept to create a terrain system like Google Earth in X3D-Earth.

U.S. Navy use of sonar is essential for national defense, but its potential impacts on marine mammals are not well understood. Predictive models have been developed, but the need still exists for modeling actual marine mammal reaction during Navy exercises. The goal of this thesis is to develop a tool that can assimilate data collected from on-range exercises for visualizing and quantifying marine mammal reactions to underwater sound. In this thesis, X3D Graphics is used to model an acoustic source, as well as visualize acoustic and GPS tracking data collected during exercises. Generating geo-referenced, time synchronized 3D scenes of an August 2006 test, marine mammal positions and tracks of two research boats are displayed over realistic bathymetry. From a separate August 2004 experiment, acoustic transmissions and tracking of a training target are modeled. These demonstrate the essential components needed for visualization of marine mammal reactions during an ASW exercise. Potential future work includes utilizing this system to model multiple SOAR exercises, which will provide baseline data analyses to better understand marine mammal vulnerabilities and improve Navy mitigation procedures.

The motivation for pursuing XML-based tactical chat includes the great potential of this technology and fixing limitations of current chat programs. XTC capabilities have the potential to completely upgrade and restructure all tactical military communications. The current tools for military chat include IRC, Yahoo, MSN, AIM, ICQ, and NKO. None of these provides the full functionality or interoperability needed in a joint environment. Moreover, if a nonproprietary chat protocol is developed, it can lead to a decision-support environment in which data, text, audio, and video can be logged, evaluated and managed, all in a Web environment where no additional specialized software or hardware is needed. Chat technology challenges for the military fit into three areas: tactical, technical, and administrative. Tactically, there are many ways chat can be used, but effective practices are not yet defined in procedures or doctrine. Joint forces use a myriad of chat programs that don’t interoperate and are usually proprietary. Technically, many chat programs are barred by firewalls and lack a robust interface to allow logging and searching past chats. From an administrative prospective, plain-text chat has no structure. Scheduling and controlling who attends or converses remains undefined. Within DoD there is no standard for how, when, and by whom chats ought to be conducted. Possible approaches to these problems include adopting a proprietary chat system or customizing an open-source implementation. Proprietary solutions are costly, do not interoperate well, and are too inflexible for a technology that is evolving rapidly. Open-source software can provide a solution that is adaptable, extensible, quick to implement, straightforward to maintain, and relatively inexpensive. This thesis provides a preliminary assessment of XML-based tactical chat (XTC) using an opensource, open-standards solution. Promising initial results demonstrate that an XML document can be sent from a XHTML

Due to growing operational constraints accelerated by the Global War on Terror, the United States Navy is looking for alternative methods of training to maintain its force in a high status of readiness. Updates in technology over the last decade have prompted Navy officials to take the initiative to update its training technologies. Computer-Based Instruction provides alternative means of training so that the training of war-fighters can be accomplished efficiently and effectively, saving the U.S. Navy time and resources while maintaining a high state of readiness. The goal of this thesis is to combine the principles of Instructional Design Systems (ISD) technology and advanced Simulation in order to produce a multimedia training capability for Navy and Marine Corps Officers. Specifically this thesis applies ISD principles to engineer and improve the Anti-Terrorism Force Protection (AT/FP) Officer Course Level II (ATO Level II Course) lessons for use by Navy and Marine Corps officers. The SavageStudio scenario generation application, originally designed for assessment of force protection measures in a port environment, is used to allow students to develop simulation lessons for this course. The final product of this thesis is a training course consisting of two lessons combining Computer- Based Training and Simulation providing interactive lessons and exercises, and two media delivery comparison studies with results for the Anti-Terrorism Force Protection lessons. The first study compared media effectiveness of Computer-Based Training versus Classroom instruction. The second study assessed the effectiveness of Computer-Based Training and the use of simulation for AT/FP.

The SeaDiver Glider is an UUV (Unmanned Underwater Vehicle) used for underwater prospecting at a low cost with a long distances coverage (≈1400 miles). It moves without propellers by changing its buoyancy with the help of ballast and its hydrodynamics profile reminiscent of a wing (model NACA0022). Ballast inflation makes it raise the surface, ballast deflated make it submerge the bottom. Ballast is positioned in front of its structure in an optimal position to use the lift of its shape. This up-and-down movement is converted into horizontal displacement by the wing-shape of the SeaDiver Glider. It mimics sinusoidal movements from the sea surface down to 300 feet underwater. This vehicle is able to traverse from one point to another without human intervention.

The initial X3D Earth Technical Requirement Workshop called together leading researchers, developers and industry experts to determine a broad set of technical requirements that will be necessary to construct an X3D Earth. This workshop was held 14-15 November 2006 at the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) in Monterey, California, USA. The main goal in the creation of an Extensible 3D (X3D) Earth will be achieved by Web3D Consortium members who are preparing to build a standards-based suite of software tools usable by governments, industry, scientists, academia and the general public. X3D mappings of world terrain, cartography and imagery will be made available for use in any scene, making it easy to geospatially reference and share X3D models. Open standards, the Web architecture, utilization of the Extensible Markup Language (XML) and open protocols will be leveraged throughout. Both commercial and open-source software codebases will be able to utilize these best practices and contribute to these shared assets. The goal of this technical requirements workshop was for participants to identify and prioritize the technical requirements, available capabilities, open challenges and strategic partnerships needed for a Web3D working group to execute this ambitious project. Emphasis was placed on extensibly adapting existing resources and in cooperation towards achieving shared goals, especially with other open geospatial organizations and standards. These workshop results document participant contributions, next-step activities and goal milestones. The workshop concluded that X3D Earth is feasible and that the effort can be started now. Many resources are already available, yet work will be needed to make them compatibly available. No showstoppers were discovered; a nice surprise after so many diverse inputs. Finally, lots of collaboration and coordinated work are needed to proceed successfully in order to build a web-services infrastructure and develop a server-side specif

With many free simulations available to developers, it is desirable to marry the existing library and work of these simulations in an attempt to create a completely open source virtual reality environment to facilitate computer aided training and simulation. Key problems associated with developing a large scale Multiple User Virtual Environment (MUVE) are analyzed including appropriate server - client architecture, terrain and object model formats, and overall project scalability. Solutions to these problems are proposed and analyzed, including using existing commercial and open source projects in development, using projects already deployed, or the feasibility of developing a new solution to meet the requirements of this thesis. Advantages, disadvantages, and possible military and educational uses for each of these free simulations and the associated persistent mirror worlds are also analyzed to recommend a direction of action for military and education simulation and training.

Real-time interactive 3D graphics and virtual environments typically include a variety of multimedia capabilities, including video. The Extensible 3D (X3D) Graphics is an ISO standard produced by the Web3D Consortium that defines 3D scenes using a scene-graph approach. Multiple X3D file formats and language encodings are available, with a primary emphasis on XML for maximum interoperability with the Web architecture. A large number of functional capabilities are needed and projected for the use of video together with Web-based virtual environments. This paper examines numerous functional requirements for the integrated use of Web-compatible video with 3D. Three areas of interest are identified: video usage within X3D scenes, linking video external to X3D scenes, and generation of 3D geometry from video.

Extensible 3D (X3D) is the open standard for Web-delivered three-dimensional (3D) graphics. It specifies a declarative geometry definition language, a run-time engine, and an application program interface (API) that provide an interactive, animated, real-time environment for 3D graphics. The X3D specification documents are freely available, the standard can be used without paying any royalties, and numerous implementations are available.

This paper describes current work in the evolution of open standards for 3D graphics for Humanoid Animation (H-Anim). It builds on previous work to encompass plausible humanoids, humanoid behaviors and methodologies for composition with interchangeable and blended behaviors. We present an overview of the standardization activites for H-Anim, including a proposed extension for the H-Anim Specification which allows for interchangable actors and dynamic behaviors. We demonstrate a standards-based approach to the complex work flow and data extraction for 3D optical motion tracking systems. We describe how to archive, annotate and treansform the whole body and segmented performance data so that they can be used more widely and with less effort. The approach is compressible, streamable, scaleable, repeatable and suitable for large-scale training and analysis, entertainment and games.

The individuals charged with the task of planning, developing and implementing force protection measures both at the unit and installation level must consider numerous factors in formulating the best defensive posture. Currently, force protection professionals utilize multiple sources of information regarding capabilities of systems that are available, and combine that knowledge with the requirements of their installation to create an overall plan. A crucial element missing from this process is the ability to determine, prior to system procurement, the most effective combination of systems and employment for a wide range of possible terrorist attack scenarios. This thesis is inspired by the work done by James Harney, LT, USN (2003). The thesis will expand the Anti-Terrorism Force Protection Tool developed during the original thesis by including the capability of testing force protection measures in multiple scenarios by utilizing models of force protection equipment and forces, virtual worlds of existing naval facilities, and terrorist agents that exhibit intent and behavioral characteristics which can test the effectiveness of the force protection equipment used. The result of this work is a scalable and repeatable methodology for generating large-scale, agent-based simulations for AT/FP problem domains providing 3D visualization, report generation, and statistical analysis.

The ability to analyze data quickly and transform it into important information is vital for information superiority. However, the amount of available data is increasing and the time to make decisions is decreasing. There is too much data for humans to sift through and filter for decision making, so computer automation is necessary. The current approach to automating data processing is to hard-code programs to parse particular data formats, but this approach is not flexible enough to handle the constantly changing data world. The Extensible Markup Language (XML) offers a partial solution by providing a syntactic standard for data exchange. The Tactical Assessment Markup Language (TAML) is an XML vocabulary for exchanging undersea warfare tactical data that provides a standard syntax for message exchange. However, the meaning or semantics of the data is unknown to the machine processing the data. The Semantic Web is a set of technologies designed to add semantic information to data for machine processing. The technologies consist of several components including a common syntax for data exchange, common semantic representation, and a common ontology language. The Resource Description Framework (RDF) is used to explicitly state the relationships between resources or entities. The Web Ontology Language (OWL) is used to build models that explicitly define the concepts and properties in a domain. Since concept definitions are written in standard languages, a variety of reasoning engines might be used to process any ontology and its corresponding data instances. Reasoning engines can also apply algorithms to the data to infer useful information and present it to decision makers. Thus there is far less need for specialty hard-coded programs or proprietary data-representation schemes to hold semantic information, since the information needed to process data is captured in an OWL ontology, itself stored in XML format for exchange between systems. Building ontologies for speci

Visualizing operations environments in three dimensions (3D) supports the warfighters' ability to make rapid, well-informed decisions by presenting complex systems in a naturalistic, integrated display format. Unfortunately, constructing these environments is a time-consuming task requiring specific expertise not typically available in the command center. The future use of 3D visualization in military operations depends on the ability of personnel with minimal graphics experience to create virtual environments quickly and accurately by leveraging data-driven customization of content from model archives with the data available in the command center. Practical 3D visualization depends on standardized scene autogeneration. The Extensible 3D (X3D) Graphics family of specifications is approved by the International Standards Organization (ISO) as the Web-based format for the interchange and rendering of 3D scenes. Previous work has demonstrated that an archive of X3D scenes, such as the Scenario Authoring and Visualization for Advanced Graphical Environments (SAVAGE) library, can be used to autogenerate sophisticated 3D tactical environments. Assembling and making sense of the data necessary to autogenerate a 3D environment requires context and good documentation, best accomplished through metadata. Metadata also supports data-centric, component-based design; key philosophies in promoting interoperability of networked applications. Coupled with recent developments in X3D, enhanced features of the Savage X3D Model archives are now sufficiently mature to support rapid generation of tactical environments. This thesis proposes an XML metadata standard to collect and organize the information necessary to create and populate a tactical 3D virtual environment: the Savage Modeling and Analysis Language (SMAL). The logical extension of a well designed standard is the ability to cross the boundaries of usage, allowing simulators to share data with command and control (C2) suites an

Current chat and instant messaging (IM) solutions within the DoD have created problems with information security and interoperability. Though Extensible Message and Presence Protocol (XMPP) is the only mandated chat and IM protocol in the DoD, the majority of the military still operates alternate nonstandard solutions that prevent interoperability and lack appropriate security assurances. XMPP is a streaming XML protocol used for multi-user text chat and Instant Messaging (IM). XMPP supports a large set of administrative and user features, valuable to military chat and IM users. As an open standard, XMPP is also extensible to allow for development of military-specific chat and IM requirements. XMPP protocol also provides significant extensibility to allow for greater command and control and other operational capabilities. This work demonstrates the use of XMPP to route XML-expressed Distributed Interactive Simulation (DIS-XML) data to conduct distributed modeling and simulation. This work also demonstrates the use of XMPP as a generalized XML message-routing framework in conjunction with XML-expressed military data models, such as the Joint Consultation Command and Control Information Exchange Data Model. Also presented in this thesis is an XML document based chat data logger, designed to support persistent operations using distributed chat architecture. Experiments conducted with Navy Exercise Trident Warrior 2006 demonstrate the value of such a framework, as well as the value of XML document-based chat data logging. Results indicate that implementation and extension of XMPP has significant value for enhancing command and control. These features, along with the benefits of the adoption of open standard solutions, make XMPP an essential technology for adoption in todayâ s operational command and control suites.