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US Military Ramps Up Stinky VR Training
HarrisonSilp writes "CNN.com has a story regarding the U.S. Military's recent foray into using Virtual Reality as a training method. Being developed by Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT), they call it Mission Rehearsal Exercise or MRE for short, and it is a most impressive setup. 'The 5-minute scenario is projected onto a 150-degree movie screen, complete with 10.2-channel audio that creates floor-shaking sound effects. To enhance the sense of reality, smells including burned charcoal can be pumped into the room.' It almost makes me want to write off college and join the army..."
Simulations have been a large part of Military development for a LONG time; almost since we had computers. I used to go to a school which was next to a longstanding military research post for virtual reality installations. When I left, they where working on a way to make a compact way to distribute the tank simulation data to multiple systems for networking.
Mostly they focus on the visual data in all of the simulations because it helps the most. This is an interesting new thing, but its really only an incremental improvement, considering how advanced the military simulations already are.
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
The annoucement at http://www.isi.edu/uarc.html lists a couple dozen news sites that have covered this announcement.
If you're interested in the AI type stuff behind virtual/synthetic elements that would go along with this sort of thing, check out some SOAR/ASTT documents.
Actually, the ICT hired Paul Debevec, one of the most prolific young researchers in using real-world data in graphics. Some of his work involves capturing the reflectance properties of skin and rendering the skin with novel geometry and novel lighting. That's a little better than a Quake skin. ;)
Soldiers continue to live in shitty housing, with hardly any benefits, and get paid like crap while counted on to sacrifice their lives.
Yet another Army idea due for the scrapper after countless $$$ is spent. Remember how much they spent on Land Warrior before they canceled that?
Instilling discipline, basic tactics, and getting recruits to understand just how much punishment their bodies can take.
SEAL, Munitions, Howitzer, Tank and Sharpshooter training is for...?
Small unit tactics, basic skills.
This dude deserves a "DUH!" award, if there was one.
What "this dude" is talking about when he refers to rehearsals is mission specific rehearsals. A unit rehearses a mission as much as possible so that people know their jobs and everyone else's and the mission as well as possible. The examples YOU cited are more general tactics and skills training.
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