The
MOVES Institute – from science fiction to your door
Michael Zyda
Director
of the MOVES Institute
Naval
Abstract:
The MOVES
Institute’s mission is research, application and education in the grand
challenges of modeling, virtual environments and simulation (MOVES). The
institute’s focus is on 3D visual simulation, networked virtual environments,
computer-generated autonomy, human performance engineering, immersive
technologies, defense/entertainment collaboration, and evolving operational
modeling. The research that we are performing increasingly looks like the
technological vision of science fiction novels. In networked virtual
environments, we are architecting the technology that allows us to build
large-scale, dynamically extensible virtual environments, virtual environments
that are semantically interoperable and always on. In computer-generated
autonomy, we are building story engines that allow us to traverse near-infinite
collections of story elements in controlled fashion, producing an immersive
experience for the user. With a scenario engine, we are determining the space
of potential outcomes from a virtual description of an infrastructure, a set of
policies, characters and cultural behaviors. In immersive technologies, we have
designed a source-less tracker that is micromachinable,
and have performed considerable work on the deployment of sound to enhance the
feeling of immersion. In defense/entertainment collaboration, we have
constructed a suite of PC games that provide the experience of a potential
career in the Army and researched the ability for computing player aptitude
from game play. We have fielded the largest played networked PC game in history
from inside of our institute, a game that has been the recipient of several
“best game” or “runner up for best game” of the year awards. We have recorded
sounds with Lucas Skywalker Sound’s THX division that are used in human
performance engineering’s LCAC simulators and in Spielberg’s movie, Minority
Report. In this talk, we discuss our research vision, specific projects within
that vision and their relationship to the popular science fiction genre.
Brief Biography:
Michael Zyda is Director of the MOVES Institute at the
Professor Zyda was a member of the National Research Council's
Committee on “Virtual Reality Research and Development” and is one of the key
authors of that report. Professor Zyda was the chair of
the National Research Council’s Computer Science and Telecommunications Board
Committee on “Modeling and Simulation: Linking Entertainment & Defense”.
From that report, for the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Research
and Technology, Professor Zyda drafted the operating
plan and research agenda for the USC Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT).
Professor Zyda was a member of the National Research Council
Committee on Advanced Engineering Environments. Professor Zyda
is chair of the National Research Council Aeronautics and Space Engineering
Board Panel on Computing, Information, and Communications Technology (CICT) and
member of the parent NRC Committee for the Review of NASA’s Pioneering
Revolutionary Technology Program. Professor Zyda is
also a Senior Editor for Virtual Environments for the MIT Press quarterly
PRESENCE, the journal of teleoperation and virtual
environments. Professor Zyda is also a member of the
Technical Advisory Board of the
Professor Zyda has consulted for the White House Office of Science
and Technology Policy, the Ministry of Industrial Development Sabah Province, Malaysia,
Professor Zyda began his career in Computer Graphics in 1973 as part of
an undergraduate research group, the Senses Bureau, at the