Web-based simulation visualization using Java3D

Abstract

The coupling of Java3D and applet technologies has the potential to revolutionize web-based simulation visualization. Applets can enable the dynamic and distributed instantiation and elimination of viewers that until now was not possible. A visualizer based on these technologies is under development at the Air Force Research Laboratory's Information Directorate. Unlike existing visualizers that must be running at the simulation's start time, this tool allows users to come and go as they please - effectively allowing one to peer into the state of a simulation at a place, perspective, and time that is of specific interest to them. Intense 3D graphics have been difficult to program and distribute among heterogeneous environments until the inception of Java3D. Sun Microsystems' Java3D provides users the best acceleration their platform can support while the WWW provides the transmission and communication infrastructure. This paper discusses a government owned, browser-based simulation visualizer capable of displaying simulated entities to any number of distributed sites.