International Newsletter vol.20 2009/6
6.16.2009 FORUM8 Co., Ltd

----Contents----

--------What's New at FORUM8--------
- NHK World Report UC-win/Road Experience Simulator June 18th
- New Product and Upgrade Information
- 2009 Intertraffic China (Seminar Report)

--------Upcoming Events--------
- Upcoming International Events
- Seminar in Shanghai, Beijing, and Seoul

--------FORUM8 Homepage Information--------
- Web Estimate Service
- Technical Support Service for UC-win/Road Overseas Users
- User Information Page
UC-win/Road Experience Simulator on NHK World TV June 18th!!

An interview about the UC-win/Road Experience Simulator is scheduled to be shown on NHK World TV.

The UC-win/Road Experience Simulator (Subaru type supporting 6 axis motion) and the UC-win/Road modelling that we exhibited at the 2009 Automotive Engineering Expo (held May 20-22nd, 2009) are scheduled to appear on NHK World TV.

NHK World: June 18 (Thu.) 8:30-9:00a.m., 12:30-13:00, 16:30-17:00, 20:30-21:00, 24:30-25:00, 28:30-29:00 (Japan time)

NHK World can be watched at homes or hotels that have a cable TV connection.

Please go to the following site to find the list of cable companies that allow you to watch NHK World TV.

http://www.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/tv/howto/index.html

You can also watch the interview on the NHK World home page (http://www.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/index.html) at the times above.

DIGINFO Internet news also showed a report on the UC-win/Road Experience Simulator (Subaru type supporting 6 axis motion) that we exhibited at our 10th UC-win/Road Conference held on May 20th, 2009.

http://www.diginfo.tv/2009/06/01/09-0159-n-en.php

UC-win/Road Motion Plat Form Option 3D Real-time VR Software

We are pleased to announce to the release of the motion plat form option for driving simulation at the end of April, 2009. Let us introduce of basic information about reproduction of virtual driving, especially about the motion plat form.

Why is the motion plat form needed?
It is nothing to say that when you carry out a driving simulation by Virtual Reality (VR), the closer driver's sense approaches to the reality, the more accurate simulation results can be acquired. As a human have five senses: Sight, Hearing, Taste, Smell and Touch, reflecting all of senses including Balance to the simulation is not easy at all. The most important sense is Sight in driving, which is reproduced by 3D VR simulation. As for the Hearing, sound system can be done. Not using Taste and Smell, drivers need Balance to capture a vehicle motion. Now, the cutting-edge technology, Motion Plat Form has been established to allow drivers communicate The Motion Plat Form is not so important when you aim to the simple training, in which vehicle motion don't change widely.


Basic of Motion Reproduction
To reproduce drivers' awareness for movements, it's necessary to trick human senses. The balance can be integrated from some information sources. A 3D accelerator can be sensed with semicircular canals (anterior / posterior / lateral semicircular canal) and horizontal and vertical accelerator can be done with an otolith (utricle and saccule). This was just capture 3D movement, so 3D movement has to be reproduced by the Motion Plat Form. To support these movement including rotation and straight movement completely, 6 degrees of freedom (6DOF): 2 times 3 axes is 6 DOF, is needed. But, because the Motion Plat Form work in a more limited space than realistic vehicle space, it's impossible to reproduce real vehicle motion. It primarily detects acceleration, not capturing by the amount of movement or speed. Thus the Motion Plat Form is created to reproduce the acceleration and controlled. As the way of reproducing the motion, following technologies are used. General 6 DOF hardware configurations are combined with multiple actuators under a cockpit. With this configuration, the cockpit moves and rotates from the center point to all directions. The maximum lengths of the movement from the center point equals to the limit of motion, so continuous and long-time movements are impossible.

Terms guide 6DOF Plat Form


Three measurements are adopted for this limitation.
  1. Reproduce the high frequency acceleration of vehicle primarily
  2. To reproduce the next acceleration, the cockpit moves back to the center with the speed which drivers can't realize.
  3. Reproduce the horizontal acceleration by gravity, when you lean the cockpit
    Above these ways, Surge and Sway can be reproduced with the Motion Plat Form of 3DOF.
In case of large simulator, moving 6DOF hardware on horizontal rail using X and Y table improve horizontal long acceleration.
Also, rotating the cockpit horizontally with Yaw table reproduce the realistic feeling when you make the curve.


UC-win/Road Support
UC-win/Road allows you to link with the Motion Plat Form, a hardware OEMed by INNOSIMULATION, Inc as an option of the UC-win/Road Drive Simulation. To realize to link with the one, it was needed to improve software. To reproduce a high performance motion, we adopted vehicle motion model of INNOSIMULATION, Inc and the Washout filer which control platform behavior. a vehicle motion model with CarSim by Mechanical Simulation Corporation is also available. To prevent uncontinuous motion of plat form, the location of plat form is controlled with over the rate of 100Hz. Calculation of vehicle motion and control of plat form can reproduce continuous motion.

In addition, for the safety of hardware and user, four layers safety system is configured.
  1. Filter not to exceed the movable range and the safety acceleration for the command signal of plat form outputted from UC-win/Road.
  2. Check the move command signal for the same purpose on the hardware device side whether the signal works well or not.
  3. Check the signal which is sent to actuator itself, and if actuator have problems, actuator's motion can be forced to stop.
  4. Emergency stop button is available whenever you want to use it.
Size 2400×1200×615
Weight 1000kg
Operating temperature 0-35°C
Payload 800kg

DOF Displacement Velocity Acceleration
Roll ±8° >±60°/s >±300°/s
Pitch ±5° >±60°/s >±300°/s
Heave ±50mm >±200mm/sec >0.5g

Open Micro Simulation Website:
Launched Micro Simulation Player on April.
This option allows you to visualize the simulation result outputted from other extra simulation software in OpenMicroSim format. It allows you to reproduce the simulation result of traffic analysis, evacuation analysis, 4D construct management application with VR environment of UC-win/Road.

The OpenMicroSim is the open format FORUM8 develops and proposes.
For more information, see the following website.
http://www.openmicrosim.org



UC-win/Road Customized System, Railway Simulator
3D Real-time VR Software

This time, we have picked up the Railway Simulator as a customized example of the UC-win/Road. Through UC-win/Road, you can set railway alignments easily as well as road settings. And when you create an electric train, you can also set overhead wires in which is important at once. Moreover when you want to express railroad crossings, signals, and points to be switched, you can use a movable setting of 3D models. Followings are application cases.

Case1: Operation Control Simulation
You may check operational images of train, acquiring information about train location from external sources or XML files or through network communication.
  • Controlling multiple trains in VR space
  • Several angles from driver's seat, railway carriage, station and a bird's eye view
  • Examination for new transportation system or for track guided / railway operations
Case2: Railway Operation Simulator
Features as following in case you use the simulator as railway operation.
  • Express realistic scenes from driver's angle through up to four screens
  • Output operating log for driving technique diagnosis
  • Virtual training combining with a large railway simulator (right)
Case3: Visibility Check Tool for signs
Available for:
  • Checking visibility before sign setting
  • Verifying track construction safety
large railway simulator (conceptual drawing)

We've introduced various uses of UC-win/Road Customized, Railway Simulator.
We hope you expect our future extension of the UC-win/Road, which is advancing beyond VR expressions.

Railway functions which is scheduled on VR-Studio

- Definition of section same as road, preparation for railway sections
- Two-way running on single track
- Definition of crossing of railway and road
- Considering of interaction between railway and vehicles

Main function lists available on the VR-Studio
  1. Track Definition
  2. Track Definition
  3. Track Constructs
  4. Track Rendering
  5. 3D Models
  6. Railway Vehicles (Axle Locations)
  7. Railway Vehicles (Minimum and Maximum Weights)
  8. Railway Vehicles (Performance Parameters)
  9. Train Definition
  10. Train Definition (Performance Parameters)
  11. Train Movement
  12. Train Movement (Spacing)
  13. Train Movement (Direction)
  14. Train Movement (Routes)
  15. Train Movement (Timetable)
  16. At-Grade Crossings (Barriers and Lights)
  17. At-Grade Crossings (Barriers and Lights Activation)
  18. At-Grade Crossings (Priority)
  19. At-Grade Crossings (Road Vehicles Required To Stop)
  20. Tunnels
  21. Bridges


Railway Simulator (train running simulator)




2009 Intertraffic China CONNECTING INNOVATION TO INFRASTRUCTURE
http://www.china.intertraffic.com/intertrafficchina2009/e (Up & Coming May, 2009)
Shanghai is the largest city in commercial, financial and industrial fields in China. Growing of recent years by leaps and bounds is attracting many attentions from overseas. FORUM8 exhibited "2009 Intertraffic China" held in Shanghai from Wednesday 18 to Friday 20 March, 2009. It focused on the topic of traffic facilities, traffic safety and traffic management. In 2008 it was held in Beijing and in this year it was held in Shanghai. FORUM8, which exhibited "UC-win/Road" and "UC-win/Road Drive Simulator" received high reputations, introducing VR application cases in civil engineering fields to attendees from over the world. Exhibition summary is as following.

Even under the global financial crisis, 180 business companies exhibited, of which 30% were from oversea.
Total number of attendees was over 5,500 and many technical seminars were held concurrently with the exhibition.
In our booth, we mainly exhibited UC-win/Road Driving Simulator and introduced VR application cases in Japan. We had hands-on activities to experience the latest driving simulator including an ECO driving.
Moreover Attendees was able to experience the "UC-win/Road". We presented demonstration of 3D VR data creation, introduction of the prize-winning works in the 7th 3D VR Simulation Contest, which were very popular.
It will be held back again in Beijing at same time in next year..


Please go to http://www.forum8.com/english/topics-e.htm for updated information on Up & Coming.
-Seminar in Shanghai, Beijing, and Seoul

The seminars provide attendees an opportunity to acquire up-to-date information about our product.
One of the main goals of these seminars is to explain analysis and design
techniques which abound in the industry. Participation fee is free!
International Seminar
Venue
Shanghai - Shanghai Seminar room (FORUM8 Technology Development (Shanghai) Co., Ltd.)
Beijing - Conference room (Beijing Tepia Technology Co.,Ltd)
Seoul - Seminar room (BasisSoft, Inc.)
Seminar Date Venue
UC-win/Road - VR 9 July 2009 Shenzhen
UC-win/Road Advanced 24 September 2009 Shenzhen
UC-win/Road for Civil 3D 18 August 2009 Shenzhen
UC-win/Road for Civil 3D 18 June 2009 Shanghai
19 June 2009 Beijing
18 August 2009 Shenzhen
UC-win/Road SDK 15 September 2009 Shanghai / Beijing / Shenzhen
16 September 2009 Seoul
Engineer's Studio/ UC-win/FRAME (3D) 15 August 2009 Shanghai / Beijing / Shenzhen
8 September 2009 Seoul
GeoFEAS2D / GeoFEAS 3D 4 August 2009 Shanghai / Beijing / Shenzhen
10 September 2009 Seoul
EXODUS - SMARTFIRE 15 July 2009 Seoul
OSCADY/TRANSYT 6 August 2009 Seoul
DesignBuilder 25 June 2009 Shanghai and Beijing
26 June 2009 Seoul
Summary
Participation Fee Free
Application
For more information and application submission, please email us at
forum8@forum8.co.jp


-Upcoming International events

We will participate in a number of overseas events. Please come to visit us in the booth to learn
more about our product line-up. Look forward to meeting you!


SimTect 2009 'Simulation - Concepts, Capability and Technology
June 15-19 2009
www.simtect.com

Fifteenth International Conference on Urban Transport and the Environment
June 22-24 2009
http://www.wessex.ac.uk/09-conferences/urban-transport-2009-2.html

2009 AITPM National Conference
5 -7 August 2009
http://www.aitpm.com/conf-upcoming.html

ITS Stockholm 2009
21-25 September 2009
http://www.itsworldcongress.com
- Web estimate service

Free web quotation service is available at the following site. Explore sample projects,
experiment and create!
https://www2.forum8.co.jp/road_est_en/html/main.htm
- Technical support service for UC-win/Road overseas users

The support service undertakes data generation tasks related to UC-win/Road such
as the generation of 3D VR simulation data, 3D models and textures,providing support for
road businesses, urban development planning, public projects, private
developments and so forth through extensive simulation tasks creating cost-affordable, high-quality data.

For more information, please go to the following site.
http://www.forum8.co.jp/english/uc-win/road-support-e.htm
- User information page

Marketing materials and updates can be retrieved and downloaded from the following site.
https://www2.forum8.co.jp/scripts/f8uinfEN.dll/login
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FORUM8 Co., Ltd. mailto:forum8@forum8.co.jp
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