One year ago, Consilium Technology announced the commercial release of Infinite Studio — cutting-edge software for real-time radiometrically credible simulation of imagery, across the visible and infra-red spectrum.
Since the launch of Infinite Studio by the Minister of Defence at SCINDICATE 2018, our team has continued to improve the quality of existing capabilities, as well as expand to new capabilities. In the last year, we have added new talent to our team and are on the hunt for even more individuals to support the continually growing demand for our product. We have a schedule of posts lined up to explain in more detail some of our new and improved capabilities, but for now, here is a summary of our new features in the last year!
Improvements to ocean surface materials, emissions and updated customisable wave spectrum.
New geometry for ocean surface which provides better performance, upwards of +20 fps more than previously achieved.
The geometry is more detailed near the viewer, with adaptive tessellation used to provide detail when zooming
Black reflection spots removed on the ocean surface and removed flattening of ocean normals (which was the original fix to the black spots)
You can now modify ocean blueprint properties without having to toggle WaveSpectrum “tick in editor”
The left section of the high-resolution image shows the previous iteration of the ocean material prior to the 3.6.0 release. The right section is what the ocean now looks like after the implemented improvements.
New boat dynamics with the Buoyancy Data UV Component
The Buoyancy component adds buoyant forces to an actor. The Buoyancy Data UV generates position, normal and area maps (buoyancy textures) for the given mesh. Buoyancy data is calculated based on model UV coordinates. A custom buoyant hull may also be used.
These features are available in the current Infinite Studio 3.6 release!
Atmosphere improvements in quality and run-time performance
The Spec Atmosphere Modtran asset has been improved to generate MODTRAN 6 atmospheric lookup data at different levels of quality levels, from “preview” to “production” in quality, for different altitudes, ranges and look angles (azimuth & zenith).
The Spec Atmosphere Modtran is now an editor-only asset and is used to create the run-time Spec Atmosphere In-Band asset providing for improved run-time performance.
The new Spec Atmosphere In-Band run-time asset contains pre-calculated (cache) in-band sensor look-up textures and curves.
The Spec Atmosphere Actor has been updated to use the new Spec Atmosphere In-Band run-time asset.
This image demonstrates the updated atmospherics over Hamilton Island at sunset.
Spec material improvements to make creating materials more streamlined and user friendly
Material Expressions are the building blocks used to create fully functional materials in Unreal Engine 4.
Each material expression is a self-contained black box that either outputs a set of one or more specific values or performs a single operation on one or more inputs and then outputs the results of that operation.
To check out our updates to the materials, check the User Guide!
New Street Map Importer plugin
The Street Map Actor facilitates the creation of landscape scenes based on data imported from Open Street Maps.
The top left image shows the Open Street Map data imported into the Unreal Engine Editor. The bottom right image shows the landscape automatically generated by our new StreetMap Importer plugin.
New Python External Control Client
The new Python API allows Infinite Studio to connect to your third-party simulation environment. Use the built-in functionality, or utilise the API to create your own custom message types.
New Camera Writers for recording rendered imagery to file
Camera Writers allow for SpecSceneCaptureComponents to output to any format. Contained in the 3.6.0 release are example output writers for raw binaries and PNG files, but the system is modular to allow for custom writers to be implemented.
New Spec Orbit Camera Actor for use in Machine Learning
The Spec Orbit Camera is a specialised Spec Scene Capture 2D Actor, for use in machine learning or data analytics task, that orbits about a given target writing captured image output to Saved/VideoCaptures.
New Stencil Labelling feature
The Stencil Label Actor allows for labelling of actors in a scene for use in machine learning or data analytics tasks. The Stencil Label Actor can use a Data Table to specify labels between 0 – 255 which will be output in the alpha channel of the final image, and to ensure consistency across different maps.
This image shows a scene with several different simple objects, viewed through the Custom Stencil – Buffer Visualisation View Mode. The objects are being identified through their uniquely set stencil values, which have been defined in the editor either manually, or through an imported data table.
New Apply Atmosphere material function for correct application of the atmosphere for transparent objects
The MF_ApplyAtmosphere node in a material is used to apply path radiance / transmission to material attributes. This is ensures correct atmospheric scattering is easily applied on both the near and far side of the transparent object.
New Volume Displaced Wake Source Component for ship wakes
The Volume Displaced Wake Source Component is an experimental feature to support high fidelity real-time ship wakes.
This feature adds coupled feedback to the ship and ocean surface with high fidelity ocean displacement over a 4 x 4 km region!
Happy 1st Birthday Infinite Studio! All of us at Consilium Technology are excited to see where the coming year will take us.
Consilium Technology has industry experts leading an experienced team of specialists and software engineers developing Infinite Studio, a cutting-edge software technology for real-time, radiometrically credible simulation of imagery across the visible and infra-red spectrum. Infinite Studio is built upon Unreal Engine and DST Group’s VIRSuite radiometric modelling technology, which has been designed to support a broad range of simulation environments, including maritime, air, land and littoral. Over ten years of Defence research and development (R&D) underpin this unique capability, bringing advanced scene generation to researchers through the power of affordable desktop computing and modern gaming engines.
Want to find out how Infinite Studio can benefit your company? Contact us today and we’ll help you discover how.
Infinite Studio has multiple custom nodes that have been programmed to allow the integration of spectral material parameters, including emissivity and reflectivity, into Unreal Engine’s physically based rendering material system
Users can create materials by supplying measured spectral diffuse and specular reflectivity, emissivity, and transmission data, or by defining a spectral directional-hemispherical reflectance curve.
In addition, Infinite Studio provides acess to spectral material databases such as NASA JPL’s ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) Spectral Library, and the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) Spectral Library
Example reflectance curve of a Concrete material
Example of the Concrete material applied to an object
Infinite Studio currently supports MODTRAN for verified high-fidelity atmospheric calculations
The following data is imported from MODTRAN and processed to in-band values:
- Atmospheric transmission based on absorption and scatter
- Thermal radiance
- Solar and lunar irradiance for applying sun and moon directional light source intensities
- Ambient sky lighting (global illumination)
Fully Volumetric Cloud modelling using MODTRAN to obtain transmission and path radiance values across cloud density
Clouds are compatible with all lighting and transmissive effects, including shadows on the ground and cloud reflections.
Highly customisable with options for weather effects, noise maps, coverage levels, altitude, wind speed, and many more parameters
Ability to add individual cloud volumes and control placement, as well as an overall bulk layer property
Ability to pre-calculate higher fidelity surface temperatures for static background objects
In-band thermal emissions are evaluated by spectral integration
Grey body and selective radiators are implemented using spectral emissivity data
Custom spectral emission curves can be imported for non-blackbody emitters
Photons to Electrons conversion: Quantum Efficiency, Full Well Capacity
Electrons to Counts: ADC Gain & Offset, ADC Bit Depth
Visible
MWIR
LWIR
NIR
At each stage of rendering, applicable noise sources are simulated and can be customised:
Dark Shot Noise: Dark current flows even when no photons are incident on the camera
Read Noise: Electronic Signal Noise resulting from sensor design
Photon Shot Noise: Statistical noise associated with the arrival of photons at the pixels
Fixed Pattern Noise: Caused by spatial non-uniformities of the pixels
Visible
MWIR
LWIR
NIR
Aliasing occurs when the rasterization process during rendering of a scene does not apply enough samples to a target resulting in scintillation artefacts
Long range targets subtending few pixels could wildly vary in intensity as sample points hit and miss the target all together
Zoom anti-aliasing is effectively rendering a part of the sensor image, a window, at a much higher resolution and averaging the image down to the original resolution, resulting in a more accurate distribution of energy
The advantage of this approach is that anti-aliasing can be adaptively applied to parts of the scene where it is needed optimizing performance by not applying it where it is not
Available in C++, Python, and Java, the External Control API supports full control of the simulation, via TCP/IP, including commands to::
Simulation Control (Begin, End, Propagate)
Querying available assets by path, or type
Open and Load levels
Spawn, move & destroy actor assets
Camera and sensor setting modification
Environmental control (atmosphere, wind, clouds & ocean) and
Custom message types
Infinite Studio provides multiple example scripts, demonstrating the most commonly used features.
Trajectory: Trajectory Spline Actor provides actor scripted 6-DOF motion via time referenced dynamic state data.
Recording Tools: Record actor and sensor image data, for single or multi-runs, useful for post run analysis in third-party tools.
Waypoints: An experimental waypoint capability has been added for air, land & maritime platforms and includes infantry soldiers. Waypoints can be imported from CSV files, manually entered or added at runtime. Users can specify many options covering waypoint actions, including initial speed, speed between points, and end of course behaviour.
Target Labelling: Rendering of scenes with target pixel (stencil) labelling for training of neural networks, machine learning or data analytics tasks
Loop Controller: Orbits a camera about a given target at varying ranges writing captured image data to file. Customisable loop control for changing additional scene features; such as the environment (atmosphere, time of day, sea sate, etc.)
Emissions: Based on Planck’s blackbody radiation equation for a specified ocean temperature
Reflections: Reflectance varies directionally according to the Fresnel Law of reflection
Transmittance: Optional transparent material applies translucent fogging to submerged objects based on depth/view angle
Fully customisable FFT based wave spectrum model of time-varying ocean height fields
Wave height and chop driven by real world parameters, e.g:
Wind speed and direction
Ocean depth
Fetch length
Additional user customisation possible, ranging from simple amplitude/property scaling through to complete user-generated wave spectrum
Buoyant Forces: Surface Platforms use a finite element solution to calculate buoyancy and wave motion. Forces are then consolidated to the object’s centre of buoyancy, and corresponding moments are generated to affect the platform’s motion
Energy Conservation/Momentum Collisions: Each element approximates the change in energy due to the collision between the object surface and the fluid element
Limitations: Currently the buoyancy model only imparts forces from the fluid to the object (the high fidelity wakes model generates coupled surface wave motion)
High Fidelity Wakes: An experimental high-fidelity volume displaced wake implementation
High Performance Wakes: A high performance turbulent (foam) and kelvin wake implementation, allowing hundreds of wakes rendered on screen for real-time solutions
As well as demo maps, Infinite Studio provides you with the toolset to create your own real world landscapes
Street Map Importer: New real word scenes have been developed, with buildings, roads, railways, vegetation as imported from OpenStreetMap and terrain height data from the Registry of Open Data on AWS Global Dataset. You can also create and import your own custom height sampler
Real World Maps: Urban, rural, forests, grasslands, deserts, mountains, littoral and open ocean scenes can be quickly and accurately generated using Infinite Studio
Infinite Studio can provide the tools to create and edit your own assets, in addition to a library of Unrestricted Assets.
3D model library of aircraft, ships, vehicles, weapons, people, infrastructure & nature assets pre-configured with multispectral materials
The Curved Earth Plugin implements a spherical Earth model based on the WGS84 reference ellipsoid and provides accurate projections for applications that require precise Earth curvature modelling.
Two modes of operation are supported:
OpenStreetMap mode – applies materials to land-use areas defined by OSM data.
Blue Marble mode – uses NASA’s Blue Marble satellite textures for surface rendering.
This approach ensures optimised performance and scalable rendering of the spherical Earth model across different zoom levels and viewing angles.
