Advanced Methods for Commander (And Staff’s) Visualization Research Tool (Advcovrt)

Abstract

The commander (and his staff) will be challenged with a vastly different battlefield during the early part of the 21st Century. New sensor suites, improved processing methods and more powerful computing will bring the capability of fully visualizing the battlefield in real time to the brigade commander and below. The problems that these capabilities introduce change the commander's plight from not having the required information to being overwhelmed with data that actually impedes planning and execution effectiveness. The purpose of the AdvCoVRT research program is to create a design and experimentation environment to evaluate new visualization concepts using soldier involvement from creation of the initial concepts to the evolvement of these concepts during realistic operational exercises. The AdvCoVRT paradigm is a dual filter evaluation methodology that combines the insights of the end user with experimental analysis to converge on visualization concepts that are both operationally and empirically based.Visualization involves both situation awareness which requires a thorough understanding of the physical environment and process visualization which implies a teleological understanding of the consequences of battle trends on possible outcomes. AdvCoVRT will focus on design concepts that integrate physical visualization displays with knowledge representation techniques to indicate future battle trends. New display technologies, 3-D representations, spatial reasoning, dynamic terrain fly-through projections, predicative algorithms, configural displays that map multiple battle indicators into 2-D and 3-D spaces, cognitive rule-based systems for knowledge representations are a sampling of the advanced methods that constitute the raw material for AdvoCoVRT concepts.