Serious Games As A Large Federated Training System

The Department of Defense is now allowing content creators everywhere the ability to utilize open source framework (VWF) for developing collaborative virtual world training environments using next generation web technologies.

This technology will be debuted at the Serious Play Conference at USC in Los Angeles on Thursday, July 24. It will allow content creators with even the most limited technical skills, the ability to create real-time collaborative 3D environments for education or training.

Lockheed Martin Mission Systems and Training Chief Innovation Officer and senior fellow David Smith is scheduled to present an overview of the VWF and also demonstrate examples of the broad applications of the free platform. Some of the examples are the Martian Rover True Game, Cross Platform Collaboration application with live video and audio, and the Sandbox application.

The overarching goal of the Virtual World Framework (VWF) is to make available for use by various military groups a single, secure and sustainable DoD training platform, to quickly create and deploy high-quality interactive 3D environments, allowing the DoD services to design and build the pieces of a larger federated system that also dynamically interoperate when required.

Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (Readiness) Force Readiness and training director Frank DiGiovanni says: "As major combat draws to a close, the Department of Defense needs a mechanism to memorialize lessons learned during our recent conflicts.”

"The VWF provides soldiers, sailors, and airmen the tools to capture these lessons for future generations to use.

"Additionally, the skills required to create applications and training content can be leveraged by military members transitioning to the civilian workforce."

The Case For Action According To Wikipedia

“In FY05, the United States Department of Defense (DoD) spent $9.1B in Modeling and Simulation related activities. Approximately 40% of that budget was used for simulators, war gaming, and modeling. The vision of the VWF is to reduce the funding used to support M&S activities in direct support of pressure to reduce spending and increase efficacy of existing / emerging technology.”

About David Smith

David Alan Smith is a computer scientist and entrepreneur who has focused on interactive 3D and using 3D as a basis for new user environments and entertainment for over thirty years.

His specialty is system design and advanced user interfaces. He is a pioneer in 3D graphics, games, robotics, telepresence, artificial intelligence and augmented reality (AR). David wrote the first realtime 3D adventure game - The Colony and was co-founder of Red Storm Entertainment, helping to create the Rainbow Six franchise.