A training simulator is only as convincing as the picture out the window, and the picture has to be right in ways the trainee never notices: the horizon in the correct place, the runway lights the correct intensity, the sensor view matching what the real seeker would show. We build the real-time image generation and scene software that drives simulators, trainers, and mission-rehearsal systems.
Most of this work sits on OpenSceneGraph, which we have shipped since 2004, and increasingly on Vulkan and VulkanSceneGraph as the field moves off fixed-function pipelines. We build image generators from scratch, extend existing ones, and rescue the ones that stopped compiling three toolchains ago. That includes hands-on work with MAK One, MAK's VR-Forces and VR-Vantage simulation suite, and with OpenIG, the open-source OpenSceneGraph image generator. We extend, integrate, and build on both.
Out-the-window and sensor views
The visible-light scene is the obvious half. The other half is sensor simulation: electro-optical, infrared, and night-vision channels that respond to material, temperature, and time of day, and radar and SAR views for seekers and synthetic-vision systems. A trainee flying an infrared approach needs the cold runway and the warm engines to look the way they will on the real display, or the training is teaching the wrong thing.
Correlated databases and terrain
Every view (out the window, the sensor, the moving map, the threat display) has to be drawn from the same world, or the simulation lies. We build correlated terrain and feature databases from real geospatial source, using the GDAL and osgEarth stack, so the mountain the pilot sees is the mountain the radar sees and the mountain on the map.
Interoperability
Simulators rarely run alone. We work with the standards that connect them: CIGI between host and image generator, DIS and HLA for distributed exercises, and OpenFlight and other model formats on the content side, so the system you build talks to the ones already in the building.
Who works on it
AlphaPixel is a US-owned small business, founded in 2004, with senior developers who each have 25-plus years in real-time 3D and simulation. DLA DD2345 / ITAR registered. We take closed-source defense work and open source alike, and we do not sell an image generator, so our advice is not a sales pitch for one.
Talk to us
Tell us what you’re building and where it’s stuck. We’ll tell you straight whether it’s something we can help with, and how we’d approach it.
Or see how we run consulting and software development engagements.
