December 01, 1996
Pittsburgh, PA - Recognizing the need for advanced commercial tools for simulation database construction, four members of the Digital Mapping Laboratory (MAPSLab) at Carnegie Mellon University have formed TerraSim. According to TerraSim president Dave McKeown, "Our goal is to provide database construction services to DoD and other agencies while developing a comprehensive commercial software solution for automated database construction. Our software focus is on the direct compilation of digital geospatial data into three dimensional visualizations. The emergence of high resolution GIS databases in the government and commercial sectors will create a need for advanced software solutions that portray this data efficiently while preserving its inherent cartographic accuracy."
The core software technology for database construction will be based on extensions to the Integrated Triangulated Irregular Network (ITIN) terrain surface construction methodology invented in the CMU MAPSLab in the early '90s.
Cartographic features such as roads and drainage are automatically integrated into the terrain skin, instead of being "pasted on" or manually edited as in other currently-available database construction systems. True integrated features allow for realistic movement of vehicles along roads, since slopes and grade constraints are observed. Lakes are compiled to be planar and flat surfaces while rivers are automatically constructed to flow downhill, obvious constraints which are often not implemented in current simulation databases.
Supporting high levels of automation in the database construction process will also be emphasized. The increasing use of simulation databases covering large geographic areas and the shorter timelines involved in training and rehearsal applications necessitate database construction systems which require a minimum of operator inputs and editing. This stands in contrast to existing systems, which require tedious and time-consuming manual editing, and do not provide the feature modeling flexibility of TerraSim's core technology.
TerraSim's Founders
David Milne McKeown, Jr.
received a B.S. degree in Physics and an M.S. degree in Computer Science from Union College,
Schenectady, N.Y. in 1972. He has over 25 years of experience in the areas of image understanding for the automated analysis
of remotely sensed imagery, digital mapping and image/map database systems, computer graphics, and artificial intelligence. At
Carnegie Mellon University, Mr. McKeown has been the principal investigator on a number of research programs in computer
vision and rapid construction of virtual world databases for advanced distributed simulation sponsored by the U.S. Army
Topographic Engineering Center, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, and
the Air Force Office of Scientific Research. In 1995 he received the Photogrammetric Award (Fairchild) from the American
Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing and the 1996 Schermerhorn Award from the International Society for
Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing.
J. Chris McGlone
received a B.S. in Civil Engineering from the University of Kentucky (1974), and a M.S. and Ph.D. in
Civil Engineering (Photogrammetry) from Purdue University (1980). For over twenty years, he has been involved with computer
vision and image processing systems for photo interpretation and in camera design and modeling as well as photogrammetric and
image understanding techniques, with applications in automated cartographic feature extraction and general computer vision
problems.
Michael F. Polis
received a B.S. in Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in 1992. He has over 6 years
experience in the development of algorithms and software for the generation of TINs and integrated TINs, including the CMU
FastITIN program and BREP library. He has participated in the planning and generation of ITIN terrain skins used in the
STOW-E, Prairie Warrior, and Camp Pendleton exercises.
Jefferey A. Shufelt
received a B.S. in Applied Mathematics (Computer Science) with University Honors, the M.S in
Computer Science, and the Ph.D. in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University in 1990, 1993, and 1996, respectively. He
has worked in the areas of cartographic feature detection and extraction for over nine years, focusing on the application of
photogrammetric methods to computer vision tasks for the rapid construction of simulation databases.
Incorporated in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, TerraSim is headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with offices at 4620 Henry Street.
TerraSim®, TerraTools®, and TerraTours® are registered trademarks of TerraSim, Inc.
Copyright© 2007 by TerraSim, Inc. All rights reserved.
