Best Practices for Mission Applications

Systems Integration Modeling and Simulations

—Jonah Adkins, JTCOIC - SIMS

US ARMY JTCOIC / SIMS Lab
US ARMY JTCOIC (JOINT TRAINING COUNTER-IED OPERATIONS INTEGRATION CENTER)
SIMS (SYSTEMS INTEGRATION, MODELING, AND SIMULATIONS)
Jonah Adkins, GISP – GIS ENGINEER
Valerie Plyler – TERRAIN ENGINEER

The main mission of the SIMS directorate of the JTCOIC is to enable full spectrum training and education through simulations. The four main ways our mission is achieved:

• Replicating battlefield events
• Model development
• Scripting
• Terrain Development

The focus of this brief is the role GIS plays in terrain development.

The SIMS lab utilizes an enterprise development license of Virtual Battle Space 2, the Army's designated video game based training and visualization tool. This tool allows for geo-specific terrains to be created within the video gaming environment.

The SIMS Lab partners with many federal, state, and local organizations to collect a wide variety of datasets. These datasets are then processed using an array of out of the box ESRI tools, extensions like Spatial and 3D Analyst, as well as custom ESRI scripts and add-ins.

The processed GIS datasets are further consumed and manipulated using the terrain development software in order to transform the information to the 3D video game environment.

The final GIS products are a 1 meter resolution satellite or aerial image, a 5 to 30 meter digital elevation model, and vector datasets that represent vegetation, structures, roads, and other geographic features. In addition, as a companion training aide for each developed terrain, a custom 2D map is created with details about landmarks, elevation, and other pertinent information.