Location Based Alteration of Simulation Models for Multi Screen VR Applications Ralf Waspe and Juergen Rossmann Institute for Man-Machine Interaction, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany Keywords: Location Based Deployment Model, Meta Data System, Multi Screen VR, Distributed Simulation. Abstract: Simulation and VR application models may depend on parameters that are location dependent. To enhance portability and to speed up deployment times we propose a method, which uses a separate location based deployment model that gets loaded automatically by the simulation system. Subsequently loaded simulation models will get altered by the system, according to the deployment model. The deployment model can be further used as a topology for distributed rendering and simulation, or as a basis for an application controlling a multi-screen VR wall. 1 INTRODUCTION Even complex simulation and virtual reality models, like the one shown in Figure 1, should be easily trans- ferable from one location to another. For example a developer may work on his or her desktop computer and then bring the simulation to a customer with an- other desktop machine, a mobile device or a cluster of computers used for distributed simulation (Fujimoto, 2001) or rendering (Marino and Vercelli, 2007). Prob- lems may arise when details of the simulation or the user interaction depend on the physical setup or the location of the hardware. For example the IDs of joy- sticks needed for user interaction may differ from site to site or the IP address of the local database that holds part of the simulation model or data may change. Figure 1: A 3D simulation of wind turbulences in a forest, running on a multi-screen hardware setup. Furthermore, if the setup consists of several com- puters used for multi-screen rendering, the number and arrangements of screens and associated render clients may vary from location to location. Another example would be the positioning and size of graphics overlay presented on a desktop computer or a multi- screen VR environment. While the later details are not strictly relevant for the simulation, they are essen- tial for the user interaction, the ease of use and there- fore the acceptability of the VR application. The easiest solution to this problem is to alter the simulation model or the associated application set- tings at each location. However, this may lead to inconsistencies of the model and longer deployment times. Furthermore, an update of the model becomes more error prone and can not be handled automati- cally by a version control system. In this paper we therefore propose a method that uses a model of the hardware setup and the infrastruc- ture of the location the simulation should be deployed at, which automatically gets loaded by the simulation system. The deployment model is then used to au- tomatically alter the subsequently loaded simulation model. This way the simulation model can remain unchanged upon transfer between different locations. Because the deployment model is loaded by the same simulation system it is convenient to use the same modeling approach as used for the simulation mod- els themselves. The rest of the paper is organized as follows: in Section 2 we will briefly introduce the schema-less core database component upon which the used simu- lation system is based. In Section 3 this core is ex- panded by the simulation functionality itself, in order to build a simulation model. In Section 4 we show how the core is extended for the deployment model 103 Waspe R. and Rossmann J.. Location Based Alteration of Simulation Models for Multi Screen VR Applications. DOI: 10.5220/0005007101030109 In Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Simulation and Modeling Methodologies, Technologies and Applications (SIMULTECH-2014), pages 103-109 ISBN: 978-989-758-038-3 Copyright c  2014 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)