Environment Editing System

The purpose of the environment editing system is to endow the users of the simulation with a user-friendly tool that allows them to specify many different virtual environment scenarios by adding, removing, and editing (i.e., scale, translate, and rotate) environment objects. For instance, a simulation user can model a virtual city environment by publishing the environment with buildings, streets, and trees then scaling them as desired.

In the following, we show how to use the environment editing system incorporated in the 3D visualizer.

Before starting the 3D visualizer for the first time, we need to adjust the visualization options. To do so, go to DIVAs GUI menu > click “Visualizer” > click “Visualizer options”.

A pop-up window to adjust the following 3D visualization configurations is displayed:

1. Display Resolution: The screen resolutions at which the 3D visualizer will be displayed.
2. Full screen: A flag to indicate if the 3D visualizer is displayed in a full screen mode or not.
3. Low Quality Models: A flag to switch between high and low quality 3D models. Using a low quality 3D model option, the 3D visualizer can handle more agents to display.
4. Animated models: A flag to switch between animated and none-animated 3D models. A none-animated 3D model have a smaller size. This allows the 3D visualizer to handle the visualization of a larger number of 3D models.
5. Anti-aliasing: the process by which smooth curves and other lines become jagged because the resolution of the graphics device or file is not high enough to represent a smooth curve. Smoothing and antialiasing techniques can reduce the effect of aliasing.
6. Memory: The amount of memeory allocated to run the 3D visualizer.
7. Vision Color: The color of the vision conde.
8. Skybox: The type of the skybox used in the 3D visualizer.
9. Terrain: A flag to indicate if a terrain is displayed around the environmnet. Although the terrain beutify the visulaization scene, it consumes memory.
10. Water: A flag to indicate if a water is added to the visulization scene. Although the water filter beutify the visulaization scene, it consumes memory.

Once the visulaization options are configured, we can run the 3D visualizer. To do so, go to DIVAs GUI menu > click “Visualizer” > click “Start 3D visualizer”.

The 3D visualizer starts and displays an empty environment as shown in the figure below.

At any point in time, you can press “F1” on your keyboard to display the help menu. The following figure shows the help menu that contains the list of DIVAs Keyboard shortcuts and their descriptions.

Using the Environment Editing System:

To start the environment editing system, press “F10”. The tool box is displayed in the right of the 3D visualizer provides an interface for the user to add virtual agents, environment objects and trigger events.

Pressing on the “Environment Object” at the right-top corner of the toolbox displays a search toolbox that provides the user with an interface to search for environment objects in different libraries and use them to create the virtual environment as shown in the following figure:

The user can type part of the environment object name in the toolbox and press the “Search” button. A list of objects with simillar names is displayed. For instance, the following two figures show examples for searching environment objects with names simillar to “tree” and “build”.

By selecting among a variety of models such as roads, buildings, traffic lights, and trees, we can easily construct complex environments as a composition of the individual environment objects.

The user can click at any element in the displayed list of environment objects and then click at an empty position in the environment to add the selected environment object. For instance, in the following figure, the user clicks on “Commercial_Buildings1” and then clicks on the environment to add a building environment object.

To edit an environment object, you must turn the editing option on. You can do that by pressing “F9”. Pressing “F9” one more time will turn editing off. Using the mouse, you can select an object using the left mouse click, and then drag and drop it to another location.

You can press “F2” then drag mouse to scale along x-axis.

You can press “F3” then drag mouse to scale along y-axis.

You can press “F4” then drag mouse to scale along z-axis.

You can select an object and then right-click to show the contextual menu. This menu allows the user to set a precise “Posiiton”, “Scale”, and “Rotation”.

Pressing “Ctrl” then drag mouse will copy the selected environment object.

Pressing the “Delete” button will delete the selected environment object.

You can also use the “Snap On” feature to auto align objects in the environment. To snap an object:

1. Turn editing on (by pressing F9).
2. Click on the environment object while pressing the “Alt” button.
3. Drag the selected object near another object (while pressing the “Alt” button) and the snapping will be done automatically.