MOSES Broken Tablet Newsletter Fall 2012

DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT A. Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.

SFCPA

ULRAY

SM

ITH

SIMU

LATIO

N & TRAINING

TECH

NOLOGY

CENTER

SIM

ULATION TECHNOLOGY FOR THE WARFIGH

TER

UNITED STATES ARMY

DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT A. Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.

FALL EDITION / MOSES Newsletter DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT A. Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.

Welcome to the inaugural issue of The Broken Tablet: Military Open Simulator Enterprise Strategy (MOSES) Newsletter - ap-proved for public distribution and brought to you by the US Army Research Lab’s Simulation and Training Technology Cen-ter (STTC) in Orlando, FL.

We hope to provide this ongoing, informational newsletter to the greater virtual world community. Our focus is to gather, share, and distribute content and ideas through the circulation of The Broken Tablet to all curious participants interested in research, brainstorming, and building out better worlds.

The editorial team of The Broken Tablet looks to explore what happens when diverse backgrounds meet in a virtual world; backgrounds including, but not exclusive to: military, technol-ogy, education, government, industry, non-profit entities, and the arts.

Sharing information, resources, designs, methodologies and/or research that can be publicly released within the larger com-munity of people fuels the creativity of any experienced or in-experienced user. We see users creatively using virtual worlds and cutting edge technology in any of our different professions, enterprises and fields of interest that will all help feed valuable information to this newsletter.

Don’t miss the following “Featured Sections” in this issue:

• Education • Featured Estate Manager • Military & Training • Future Watch• Community & Government • Featured Artist & Content Creation

Now, a note to the MOSES Community: the future success of The Broken Tablet depends on your input! We encourage you to submit your comments, suggestions and contributions to us. Together, we can build a supportive community and drive the growth of the extended virtual world in which we live.

Get ready to unite with us to evaluate the ability of the Open Simulator and to provide independent and secured access to a virtual world.

Virtually yours,

Douglas B. Maxwell, Director, Project MOSESTonietta A. Walters, Editor-in-Chief James Neville, Managing Editor

For more news, information, and articles,please visit the

US Army RDECOM ARL HRED STTC website at:http://www.arl.army.mil/www/default.cfm?page=31

MOSES YouTube Channel:http://goo.gl/ufaMN

MOSES Informational Websitehttp://brokentablet.arl.army.mil

Email:[email protected]

About Us . . . .SFC

PAUL

RAY

SM

ITH

SIMU

LATIO

N & TRAINING

TECH

NOLOGY

CENTER

SIM

ULATION TECHNOLOGY FOR THE WARFIGH

TER

UNITED STATES ARMY

3 FALL EDITION / MOSES NewsletterDISTRIBUTION STATEMENT A. Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.

The MOSES Rationaleby Douglas Maxwell The US Army Research Laboratory Simulation and Training Technology Center (ARL STTC) conducts research into gaming and virtual world technology for possible application to military training needs. The ARL STTC tests and evaluates numerous virtual world technologies, from both industry and the open source community, as it is widely recognized there is still no “one size fits all” solution for all the training and educa-tion needs of the military. Some virtual environments excel at providing classroom focused experiences, oth-er virtual worlds may have better terrain and weather capabilities, still other virtual technologies may have very high accuracy but low graphics quality. The sac-rifices needed to support various capabilities are often fidelity in the simulation. What is needed is a flexible virtual training framework that allows for variable fidel-ity depending on training objective. One of the virtual worlds investigated was Second Life®, an online three di-mensional virtual world designed to allow for significant social interactivity. Content is uploaded and presented by the users, called residents, and not created by Linden Lab (the makers of Second Life®). This is a radical de-parture from the traditional art and content pipelines of competing games.

Objects in Second Life® are interoperable and capable of being scripted to perform various behaviors. This al-

lows for computational steering and represents a major shift from the traditional virtual training environment creation process. These attributes also allow for subject matter experts to directly upload work and training ma-terial rather than be completely dependent on artists and modelers.

Initial exploratory efforts by the US military into the Sec-ond Life® product revealed a number of useful activities could be accomplished, not only for training but also modeling and simulation. For example, procedural train-ing activities are accomplished through the creation of a virtual representation of a working environment. This allows participants to make mistakes safely and inexpen-sively. Use cases include the preparation for rare or dan-gerous events. Another useful example is the creation of interactive situations that challenge the user and provide feedback for knowledge training. The simple scripting language in Second Life® allows for a non-determinant learning environment driven by objectives, not frame-work limitations.

Second Life® has been established as a useful platform for educators and online learning. Linden Lab has created a profit structure where they benefit from users adding to their framework. However, certain drawbacks to the platform have been exposed. Specifically, the content in the platform is very difficult to export. Since Second Life® makes provisions for all content to have intellectual prop-erty rights associated, work created in group settings has complex ownership rights, making capture and backup a

Armory on MOSES. Photo Courtesy US Army STTC. Content, Aimee Weber Studio.


challenge.

Another drawback is cost. Although it costs nothing for a casual user to register an account and enter Second Life®, individuals or organizations who wish to create content need to purchase space to do so. Private space costs $1000 USD setup fee with $295 USD per month in maintenance costs. Since Second Life is a public forum, certain security and privacy issues arise. Educators often feel the need to obtain this private space so that the students are protected from exposure to the rest of the Second Life® citizens.

Military users need to be able to operate the virtual train-ing environments on networks separate from the In-ternet. Often times the training material is sensitive or simulation data has a classified component. Since Linden Lab does not currently offer a version of the Second Life® platform for use behind a corporate or government fire-wall, the product has limited utility.

In late 2006, Linden Lab made the surprising decision to open the source code to their client code. Enterprising programmers in the open source community created a reverse engineered software server, called the Open Sim-ulator. Open Simulator is an open source virtual world server which can be accessed via the same viewer as Sec-ond Life® and the developers strive to make the software as closely compatible as possible. The Open Simulator project is an initiative created to address issues such as content portability, security, and cost. Using this open source software, educators can explore the use of a sec-ond life environment without investment, use the envi-ronment in an enclave network environment to protect students that may be under age and have the ability to backup their work.

MOSES is not a product, but intended to be a best prac-tice strategy for other organizations wishing to deploy an Open Simulator based virtual world. The objective of MOSES is to evaluate the Open Simulator and its ability to provide network independent and secure access to a virtual environment. MOSES has four main goals:

1. To meet or exceed the service and capabilities provided by the Second Life® Enterprise product.- Persistent virtual world- Stable server environment with redundancy- Voice communications - Base content library- Mesh based content import capability- In-environment multimedia presentation capability- Provide on-line graphical monitoring mechanisms to

start and stop server processes remotely- Provide online graphical user management and setup.2. To provide a stable and in-kind Second Life®-like client environment.3. To provide guidance to other organizations wishing to replicate MOSES results.4. To link to other organizations to expand the MOSES grid.

MOSES was initially deployed in February of 2011 to a limited test group of about a dozen Open Simulator ex-pert users and it debuted to the public on March 22, 2011 at the Defense GameTech Users Conference in Orlando, Florida. It was shown for the first time to a large public crowd at the tutorial, “Virtual Worlds: Advanced Topics with Second Life® - Programming & Management”. The advanced topic was a discussion of the MOSES project and the sane approaches to Open Simulator migration with comparisons to both grids.

As of this writing, the MOSES has grown to almost 200 sims with over 400 registered users. The program has grown through the contributions of a vigorous and ac-tive community of users. In addition to the main MO-SES grid, there are additional prototyping activities and a “MOSES in a Box” project that allows people to experi-ment on their own private networks.

For more information, contact STTC Public Affairs Office:Michelle [email protected]

Douglas Maxwell, MSMEScience and Technology ManagerVirtual World Strategic Applications U.S. Army Simulation & Training Technology Center (STTC)


Virtual STEM Labsby James Neville

Dr. James McDermott is Professor in Instructional De-sign for Online Learning at Capella University with a distinguished career in science, industrial technology, and education. He was a process engineer for Northrop Grumman with material review board authority on a number of flight systems including the B1, B2, the Space Shuttle and the C17. He is a world class engineer with contributions in trainer based computer simulations that were targeted to reduce fabrication losses. He has been working with virtual environments since 1987, including dissertation work on virtual reality simulation interfaces such as HMD (Head Mounted Displays) at Texas A&M University.

Dr. McDermott joined the MOSES community in January 2012. His mission is, “To support fast simulation design of STEM [Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math-

ematics] labs in support of the American security effort through a solid technology base.” McDermott states, “We are building a science lab [3-D Web] object library. It is our view that relevant story lines can enhance student en-gagement and retention. We are building an Artificial In-telligence capability supporting bots modeled upon great scientists of the past. It is our intent that students can re-live milestone discoveries of the past with the original, historical researchers responsible.” (Think of being at the sides of Lavoisier, Faraday, Curie; discovering Oxygen, Electromagnetism, Radioactivity.)

“Our progress to date involves a six table science lab which is supported by a single instrument for each of bi-ology, chemistry, and physics. Currently we are looking at existing AI codes and constructing their own pathway to achieve a convincing AI capacity.”

McDermott’s career path took him from major contribu-tions in industry to a growing interest and dedication to STEM education, particularly in engaging simulation for

Virtual Reality Fruit Fly Lab; Students deduce patterns of genetic inheritance using Drosophilia. Photo courtesy James McDermott


enhanced learning. He took time out to teach five years of advanced physics and chemistry at the high school level, then returned to university level. McDermott now mentors a dozen doctoral students online in Second Life®.

By creating lab instrumentation simulations in online virtual environments, McDermott seeks to allow students to personally experience the thrill of scientific discovery; he seeks to allow student access to sophisticated lab in-strumentation in virtual reality that they may never see in real life.

McDermott has a big vision for the future: “We need to accelerate the scientific development infrastructure for our kids. The future of the military is going to be robot-ics, energy, computers, and quantum communication. Most important to all that is a scientific foundation.” Mc-Dermott’s approaches his work with an engineering fo-cus, “To put together tools and subsystems to achieve a specific goal. If you can show practicality and usability, then you can push development faster down the line. You can push virtual worlds to the next level. In that regard, MOSES is a leader.”

“The power of MOSES is in the people who come to it. There are a lot of places to get the technology. But the people who come to MOSES have a vision, a highly de-veloped skill set, and are willing to cooperate. The com-munication that goes on formally (e.g., at meetings) and informally (e.g., between meetings) is priceless.”

McDermott believes in sharing work developed from the outside into MOSES. Available on his estate, for example, are titration machines and optics benches. The titration machine is a tool used in analytical wet chemistry, which analyzes chemical samples for pH. The optics bench al-lows exploration of the dual wave/particle nature of light using lasers, mirrors, and beam splitters. When McDermott was in Second Life®, he heard of the Open Simulator (OpenSim), but at that time felt no in-terest in “starting from scratch in some other universe”. However, with MOSES available, “it became obvious that OpenSim has matured, providing powerful technologies without attendant high costs. Through MOSES, I have a much greater appreciation for OpenSim and its possibili-ties for proliferation across multiple virtual worlds.”

McDermott concludes, “I have been impressed by the quality of the work done by MOSES participants in the Defense Game Tech User’s Conference and the Federal

Virtual Challenge. MOSES members are fellow contribut-ing researchers, and I look forward to continue working with them to engage more outside science and technol-ogy communities and to help schools and people acceler-ate science infrastructure development.”

Virtual Reality Optics Bench Lab; Students explore the dual wave/particle nature of light using lasers, mirrors, and beam splitters. Photo courtesy James McDermott


MOSES Winners of the 2012 Federal Virtual Worlds Challengeby Pam Broviak

Out of several entries to the Federal Virtual World Chal-lenge 2012 submitted by members of the MOSES com-munity, two were chosen as finalists. One of the the final-ists was Dr. Kay McLennan, a professor of practice and acting director at Tulane University, with her Prisoners Dilemma Layered Simulation Prototype. The other final-ist was Robert Daniel, president of BlueGrid Virtualiza-tion Security, with his CyberSim Holodeck entry.

Dr. McLennan’s project, entered under the Engaged Learning category, is a virtual simulation of the prisoners’ dilemma, a classic game often analyzed in the study of game theory. The 3D environment in which the entry was created allows for students to experience an actual im-mersion into the game. Students can synchronously visit the virtual site and enter an virtual jail cell together to begin the game. Scripted boards facilitate the game play prompting the students for their answers. These respons-es are displayed in an adjacent interrogation room.

Dr. McLennan also makes use of 3D visual displays to il-lustrate the different player scenarios available in the pris-oners’ dilemma game. Additional resources are offered in a nearby courtroom setting. These include slide shows, vocabulary flashcards, and videos offering information

about game theory strategists. A self-test is also available for students. In the jury area of the courtroom, students are encouraged to leave or receive notecards with feed-back and information.

The entire project was built in the MOSES grid. Visitors to that virtual environment can find information about the build at the following location: sttc_0037/149/224/31. Additional resources and videos about the Prisoners’ Di-lemma Layered Simulation Prototype can also be found on the project’s website at:https://sites.google.com/site/fvwc12mclennan/.

Mr. Daniel’s CyberSim Holodeck project, entered un-der the Holodeck category of the competition, models a Security Operations Center as an augmented virtual cyber security analyst workspace. According to the proj-ect website, “The CyberSim Holodeck combines virtual reality (SecondLife and MOSES) with augmented reality technologies (Smartphone and HTML5 viewer) to create an analytic training environment for the next generation cyber security analyst.” Daniel used the following equip-ment to assist in creating the holodeck experience: micro-phone, keyboard, Xbox Kinect, and an Emotiv headset.

One component of the CyberSim Holodeck project high-lights VWphone, a phone system that can be used to com-municate between grids. This network also allows a cell phone user to call people or objects in a virtual world. Another component of the project shows how a user can manipulate virtual objects with the use of an Emo-tiv headset. Daniel demonstrated how this worked dur-ing a presentation at the Federal Consortium for Virtual

Prisoner’s Dilemma. Photo Courtesy Dr. Kay Mclennan


Worlds Conference in May 2012. During his talk, he wore a headset and mapped his emotions into a virtual world to move bars up and down on a virtual object strapped to his avatar’s back. As his stress or excitement level in-creased, the bars would go up. They would then return to a lower level as he relaxed.

CyperSim Holodeck Project, Photo Courtesy of Robert Daniel

More information about Mr. Daniel’s CyberSim Holo-deck is available on the project website at: ht tp : / / c y b e rs i m . n e t / Hol o d e ck / Hol o d e ck . php or in the MOSES grid at the following location: sttc_0037/149/224/31.


2013 US Army ARL STTC Federal Virtual Challengeby Tonietta A. Walters

The Federal Virtual Challenge (FVC) is an open, global Challenge to the world led by the U.S Army Research Laboratory’s Simulation and Training Technology Cen-ter for the best implementations of chosen focus areas as demonstrated in/or with a virtual environment. Winners receive recognition, travel and a monetary award. This annual Challenge event, previously known as the Fed-eral Virtual World Challenge (FVWC), is conducted to explore innovative and interactive solutions in virtual environments. Tami Griffith, Project Manager for En-hanced Dynamic Geosocial Environment (EDGE), is the initiator and lead of the FVC. She visited MOSES during office hours on August 24th, 2012 to share information about the Challenge, the following is a summary of her presentation.

The intent of the FVC is to reach out to the real innova-tors in virtual environments and have them demonstrate how they might solve some of the tough problems we, in the government, are struggling with. Winners receive rec-ognition, travel and cold-hard cash.

The reason we changed the name of the challenge from the FVWC to the FVC, was to be more inclusive of various environments. We have space available in Second Life® and in MOSES on a first come, first serve basis. Making these spaces is meant to be supportive, not prescriptive. You can use whatever environment you choose. In the past we have received entries in Second Life®, OpenSim, Unity, VBS2, PC’s, iPad’s and even Smart Phones.

Every year we ask the military folk what tough problems they are struggling with; then we ask industry what they see as hot topics. The challenge’s focus areas are in the overlap area between the two. So this year’s focus areas are a demonstration of how to train Critical Thinking/Adaptability in virtual environments and how to ‘seam-lessly’ do locomotion in a virtual environment. The lo-comotion topic is focused on low-cost interface tools; for example, less than $600 per user. One aspect of the Criti-cal Thinking/Adaptability focus area is how you measure the trainee’s progress; i.e., how do you know that they de-veloped critical thinking or adaptability skills as a result of the training.

It is important to note that entries are not white papers or concepts, but demonstrations. Evaluators should be able to enter a virtual environment and experience the criti-cal thinking/adaptability training. Also, we will replicate the interface entries in our lab to evaluate the locomotion focus area.

Tami Griffith presents FVC to MOSES participants. Photo Courtesy James Neville


We award the challenge at the GameTech conference in Orlando. This year, the conference will run from 17-19 April. Awards will likely be on the 18th. Winners of the challenge will have the opportunity to demonstrate their entries to the attendees of GameTech and are recognized during a lunch session that includes all attendees. There are some good videos on the website that show last year’s conference and demo session. Many of the conference attendees (just under half) are government, the rest are industry and academia. The opportunity to meet and greet like-minded folks can be helpful in a variety of ways. Some winners gained work opportunities and/or some additional government contracts due to these op-portunities.

Entering the competition is free. You submit a webpage that describes your entry (details on the website). The deadline for entries is December 10th, 2012. There is no need for there to be direct military scenarios. A smart phone app would work well, as long as you can make it accessible to the evaluators. Keep in mind many of the other entries will be in immersive 3D spaces, so it would have to really bring something nice to the table to be competitive.

More details about the Challenge’s focus areas and in-struction for entries can be found on the FVC website: http://fvc.army.mil. Questions not answered by the web-site can be emailed to [email protected].


MOSES in A Box Videoby Dave Fliesen


MOSES in a Box (MIAB) was developed as a portable ver-sion of the Project MOSES virtual environment, which is an open source virtual world using OpenSim technology. MOSES was developed by the U.S. Army Laboratory’s Simulation and Training Technology Center in Orlando, Florida to provide an open source solution that can pro-vide virtual environments for training, simulation, and collaboration.

MIAB Video Screenshot. Photo Located at http://vimeo.com/50647996


MOSES Community Research Showcases Videoby Laxton Consulting, LLC


The MOSES Community is a professional, online net-working group researching the ability of OpenSimulator platforms to provide independent, high-security, high-performance access to three-dimensional, online, interac-tive virtual environments. Backgrounds include military, technology, government, education, industry, and arts. This Research Showcases Video highlights six research projects underway. Shown are: Air Force Research Lab; Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Lab; Colorado Technical University; XTAL Enterprises; Nou-menArt Center for Applied Aesthetics; Laxton Consult-ing LLC.

MOSES Community Research Showcases Video Screenshot. Photo Located at http://www.laxtonconsulting.com/home/demo/MOSES2_v3_720.wmv


Broken Tablet is the official newsletter of the MOSES community, approved for public distribution by ARL and published quarterly.

Defense Game Tech User’s Conference is an annual meeting to advance awareness and use of gaming technol-ogy for military training.

Estate Managers manage one or more regions (simulator resources) and projects in the MOSES grid.

FVC (Federal Virtual Challenge) is an open, global Challenge to the world for the best implementations as demonstrated in/or with a virtual environment conducted to explore innovative and interactive solutions in vir-tual environments. Winners receive recognition, travel and cash.

Firestorm is a Third Party Viewer developed for use with Second Life and OpenSim 3D environments.

MOSES (Military Open Simulator Enterprise Strategy) is a privately-hosted, OpenSim, online virtual environ-ment with stringent security from hackers.

MOSES Community is a professional, online networking group researching the ability of OpenSimulator plat-forms to provide independent, high-security, high-performance access to three-dimensional, online, interactive virtual environments. Backgrounds include military, technology, government, education, industry, and the arts.

MIAB (MOSES In A Box) is a portable, publically-licensed version of the experimental Project MOSES virtual environment which can be downloaded and installed on standalone individual or enterprise servers.

MOSES Viewer v3 is an ARL-STTC implementation of Firestorm suitable for use on the MOSES grid.

OpenSim (OpenSimulator) is an open source multi-platform, multi-user virtual environment application server.

STTC (United States Army Simulation and Training Technology Center) provides state-of-the-art applied research to develop simulation technologies, including MOSES.

Glossary

MOSES Broken Tablet Newsletter Fall 2012

Technology

Transcript of MOSES Broken Tablet Newsletter Fall 2012