Finmeccanica Open Synthetic Terrain Environment (FOSTER)

In the prestigious context of the 48th Paris Air Show (June 2009), Telespazio VEGA created the synthetic environment called FOSTER (Finmeccanica Open Synthetic Terrain Environment) specifically for Finmeccanica.

Several scenarios which took place in the FOSTER synthetic environment, were developed by the different Finmeccanica subsidiaries; Telespazio VEGA then developed the solution for 3D real-time visualisation (based on GlobView).

The Strategic Situation Center

These various scenarios illustrated the different products and services developed by Finmeccanica – helicopters, aircraft, satellites, UAVs, and sensors – demonstrating that Finmeccanica has the capability to develop integrated systems capable of answering all types of operational requirements, for all types of customers (civil protection, army, police, etc.), in any application domain (maritime surveillance, border control, emergency management, etc.). The FOSTER database and the 3D visualisation solution developed by Telespazio VEGA were demonstrated in the Strategic Situation Center (SSC) located on the Finmeccanica stand.

Description

The FOSTER database is a 160km by 160km geo-typic database, which includes various landscapes: ocean, mountains, urban area, desert land, etc.

The main areas are:

A north city including more that 300 buildings (stadium, harbour, etc.)

• A south city including more than 150 buildings
• A village including around 50 habitations
• A military airport

The 3D models and terrain database were firstly created with automatic generation tools. In a second step, manual processing was applied in order to add realism and enhance the graphic quality, keeping in mind the 3D real-time visualisation constraints (number of polygons, texture size, etc).

Once created, the FOSTER database was successfully and easily integrated into a whole globe dataset, in order to enable a complete visualisation from space level to building level.