Maheshya Weerasinghe

Flight Simulator for Serious Gaming

Providing entertainment is the primary concern of the gaming. Once this primary objective alters to provide learning and training materials it calls simulators or the serious gaming. Learning through experiencing or facing the actual scenario is considered as an effective learning technique. The limitations of the experiential learning and how the simulations are going to address those limitations are also reviewed in this paper. Aviation field is one of the most critical and potentially high risk areas where one has to spend lots of money and resources in training scenario. Hence the serious gaming concepts have being playing as an effective cost cutting solution in aviation training. In this paper it is intended to discuss the seriousness of a selected flight simulator and how they adopted the teaching learning concepts. How the simulator can be used in the learning curve is also discussed separately

Real-time realistic ocean wave rendering model for visualization of different sea states

At the present time virtual simulation has become a very popular subject in computer graphics. The main goal of the simulation in the context of computer graphics is reproducing the natural phenomena surrounding us in a more true-to-life possible way. When representing natural phenomena, more sensible factor is increasing the reality. Among many kinds of simulations realistic ocean simulation has become an important arena. Actually, it is a very interesting natural object to model because two third of the surface of the earth is covered by the ocean and water is an intrinsic part of day to day life. There are different models to represent ocean surface. However, due to highly dynamic behavior of the ocean, representing the visual complexity of these phenomena using basic simulation models is a challenge. Thus ocean water simulation is a computationally expensive process. The main aim of this research is proposing a substantive ocean wave visualization model taking into account different sea states proposed by Beaufort Sea scale. Since yet there is no such single approach with a satisfactory outcome. The state of the sea is changing time to time according to wind speed and other various phenomena. This dynamic feature is very important for serious computer games and simulators use for maritime trainings. The rendering mechanism suggests in this thesis is intended to provide an efficient and accurate method to represent the high quality of visual characteristics and runs in real time to produce highly realistic ocean scenes regardless of the complexity of the wave model. Building a mathematical model for representing the shape of the ocean surface is not an objective of this research. But suitable existing wave models are used for the study. Further this thesis is trying to identify the most suitable wave model among different kind of existing wave models for representing the each selected sea state.

Stiffness parameter evaluation for graphical and haptic gallbladder model

Surgery simulation platform is a combination of three components; deformable model; input output method and; collision detection method. Throughout the literature there are number of techniques, algorithms and mechanisms have been proposed to enhance the performances of those modules. In this paper we presents an extensive literature review on deformable object modeling algorithms, collision detection methods, haptic devices, haptic force feedback and rendering mechanism. Stiffness value is the governing parameter which decides the overall performance as well as the realism of the deformable models. With the stiffness it can increase or decrease the flexibility of the model. With the haptic force feedback it can sense the flexibility of the model. Hence it is important to impose an acceptable stiffness on model to enhance the user realism. Based on the methods which have been used to implement the deformable model, the acceptable stiffness value range may vary. In this paper it has discussed the stiffness parameter extraction process for the designed deformable gallbladder model under certain constraints and also has proposed an acceptable stiffness value range. The process has been evaluated based on the young modulus value of the live gallbladder tissue.

Real-Time Simulation of Aero-optical Distortions Due to Air Density Fluctuations at Supersonic Speed

Implementations of visual simulations of shock phenomenon have been given significantly less-attention in last decades. We present a novel approach to simulate aero-optical distortions due to shock waves generated by a supersonic jet by considering the physics background of the shock phenomenon. The optical distortion is simulated by calculating the index of refraction for oblique shock waves. The refractive index for the shock wave was calculated, by considering the mean characteristics of supersonic flows. Even though the flow characteristics are not uniform across the shock wave the results shows that this approach is a better way to simulate aero-optical distortions in real time.

Commercializing university research outcomes: A Sri Lankan experience

Sri Lankan government has taken a policy decision to develop the country as a knowledge hub in Asia. Universities have a pivotal role in realizing this goal and they have the responsibility to contribute new knowledge, through innovation and research, towards the economic development. Research culture in the Sri Lankan universities is gradually developing and there have been several research projects that resulted in commercializable innovative outcomes. However, commercialization is a challenging task due to several reasons and only a few significant outcomes of the university research have been successfully commercialized. Commercialization challenges are an integral part of the universities and research institutes and they are looking for pragmatic solutions. In developed and industrialized countries, it is now widely accepted that the research outcomes of universities plays an important role in the economic development and it is quite common for the industry to work in collaboration with the universities to innovate and find solutions to their problems. However, this is not the case in Sri Lanka and due to this there is a large gap between the university research outcomes and industry expectations. In this paper, as a case study, we present our experience in taking the outcome of a university research project and adapting it to solve a problem faced by two entities responsible for handling maritime traffic in Sri Lanka. We have productized the research outcome to a large extent and deployed it to handle a real world problem. While we cannot claim that it is fully commercialized yet, we have bridged the gap between the expectations of the real world users and the researchers at the university. Also, in this paper we explore how other countries have handled the problem of commercializing research projects as well as the Sri Lankan effort in this regard.

A lightweight approach to simulate a 2D radar coverage for virtual maritime environments

Virtual simulation systems present a cost effective way of training the mariners to navigate a ship in a realistic maritime environment. To offer a better training session, a need arises to model other tools and components as a part of the virtual simulation system, such as radar, sonar and telescope, that are used to navigate a vessel in the real world. Taking a light-weighted approach, we developed a virtual radar coverage for the Vidusayura virtual maritime learning environment. It simulates an actual marine radar, which gathers information of its surroundings from the virtual environment with which a trainee naval officer interacts. The impact and the effectiveness of the virtual radar system, in terms of the trainee, is also analyzed against a real radar simulation system.