CM Labs Breaks New Ground with Massive Update to Vortex Studio

CM Labs Simulations announced the release of Vortex ® Studio 2018c, the latest version of its unified simulation and visualisation platform for the training and virtual prototyping of land and sea equipment.

Expanding on the physics and dynamics that CM Labs is known for, Vortex Studio 2018c features upgraded earthwork systems, providing the most realistic soil simulation to date. Incorporating a water-bridge representation for modeling suction effects between interacting soil particles, soil now interacts and coheres better, equating to high-fidelity cutting, pouring, and piling when working with the simulated earth.

The soil particle solver driving the earthwork systems has also been enhanced, using the single-precision floating-point format for particle properties and time integration. This change improves soil particle solver performance and enables the use of single precision vector extension intrinsics, allowing for further speed augmentations.

These improvements to soil physics and performance in Vortex Studio are also paired with extensive visual upgrades.

“Graphically, earthworks are getting a new look with improved soil volume rendering, better overlap between diggable soil and the surrounding terrain, and adjustable parameters that shift the soil surface, allowing visualization of a wider variety of soil types,” elaborated Marc-Alexandre Vezina, CM Labs’ product manager (Vortex Studio). “These changes provide more realism and make the soil visuals easier to tune for the right balance of performance and appearance.”

Aside from earthwork, Vortex Studio 2018c features a brand-new solver, capable of processing multiple components across multiple cores for increased real-time simulation performance.

“In particular this will power major performance increases in dynamically-complex systems featuring many rigid-bodies,” said Vezina. “By distributing calculations into different sub-groups, the solver can dynamically work on multiple objects at once, driving smoother simulations with less need to compromise performance.”

From a mechanical perspective, CM Labs worked to upgrade vehicle and cable systems. The tire model has been updated, allowing for better simulation of hard ground-wheel interactions. Each wheel’s inertia can be set independently of geometry, allowing for simulation of specific wheels based on actual lab data, or situations such as flat tires or damage to individual wheels. As well, cables can break with a “whiplash” effect that is important to replicate in safety training scenarios.

Incorporating a technical preview of physically based rendering (PBR), visualization in Vortex Studio 2018c is far more faithful to real-world imagery, allowing for better occlusion effects, ambient lighting, and small, yet significant, touches such as reflections of the environment on glass and chrome.

In terms of usability, the user interface has been improved with a revamped homepage, additional grid capabilities for easier object alignment, and the inclusion of field arrays and field containers. The setup process has also been simplified with a step-by-step installation wizard that allows the choice of software packages and libraries, and simultaneous setup across multiple machines.

Vortex Studio will be on display and available for demos at I/ITSEC 2018, on the Bohemia Interactive Simulations booth (2235). To arrange a demo, visit cm-labs.com/itsec-2018.