February 05, 2004
Pittsburgh, PA - TerraSim, Inc. is providing its TerraTools® commercial software and geospatial consulting services to Carnegie Mellon University's Red Team who is competing in the DARPA Grand Challenge, an autonomous vehicle race over a 210 mile course in the California and Nevada desert with the exact race corridor being revealed only two hours before the start of the race. TerraSim's contributions will enable rapid generation of an accurate vehicle navigation route from a massive geospatial data library.
This data library consists of a single road network file that covers the entire area that may contain the raceday route. This road network was compiled from USGS DLG data and was hand edited using TerraTools to create a more complete and accurate data set. In addition to the road data, the data library includes other geospatial data sets such as coverage of USGS DOQQs and DEMs. Over 320GB of rectified imagery and DEMs were organized for backdrop editing and refinement within TerraTools project files.
Portion of Grand Challenge terrain data in the TerraTools Editor
Complementing this source data are on-site GPS road traces collected by members of the Red Team driving throughout the potential race area. TerraTools supports the integration of this disparate geospatial information into a single efficient representation that supports the unique "just-in-time" planning of vehicle routes, constrained by the DARPA waypoints communicated to each team on raceday.
Located in downtown Pittsburgh and in close proximity with the Red Team Mapping Group, TerraSim has provided over 20 copies of their TerraTools 3D database generation product to support a massive student-driven geospatial intensification effort that is a key to success on race day. TerraSim also developed software customized to export a fully integrated and attributed terrain map organized to interface with Red Team pre-planning and SandStorms onboard race day planning software systems.
The TerraSim Red Team group is led by Bill Starmer, Jeff Shufelt, J. Chris McGlone, and Dave McKeown.
Updates Congratulations!!! SandStorm has qualified for the pole position in tomorrow's 10 hour race from Barstow to Primm, NV. (3-12/2004)
"Know the ground, know the weather, your victory will then be total"
-Sun Tzu, approx. 300 B.C.
About TerraSim
TerraSim is a high-technology company that provides software solutions and services for advanced visual simulation database construction using cartographic data. TerraTools®, their primary product, is available for both Windows NT/2000/XP and SGI IRIX workstations. TerraTools is used in the automated construction of dense urban environments for regional planning as well as simulation databases for military exercises covering hundreds of one degree geocells. TerraSim also provides database construction services and advanced technology development for both civilian and military customers.
TerraSim®, TerraTools®, and TerraTours® are registered trademarks of TerraSim, Inc.
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