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Interview: Wesley Bard Of Lockheed Martin By Victor Baron Will Prepar3D be supporting multiple platforms or just Windows based? Because of our hard dependency on DirectX we will be Windows based for the foreseeable future. We're excited about the Windows platform, where it is heading, and how easy it allows for customers and trainees to get started with Prepar3D and a whole host of Windows compatible joysticks, touchscreens and other training devices. How are you addressing concerns for future compatibility with new Windows versions? We have a variety of hardware and software we compile and test Prepar3D on. As Windows gets updated, so do we. Are there plans to include Real Weather in Prepar3D? There are several great add-ons that provide our customers the option of real or live weather. We encourage our customers who have those requirements to seek out some of the great add-ons that can pull in live weather data. Any plans to incorporate OpenGL support? Not at this time, we are all-in on DirectX for the foreseeable future. Are there minimum system requirements for optimal usage? We publish and update the minimum system requirements on our web site. Now that the platform is able to use more and more of the graphics card for greater immersion and added features, the old adage of having the best CPU you can buy still holds true, but we are also able to do more and more with faster graphics cards as well. Is there a 64 bit version of Prepar3D in the future? It's on our roadmap definitely. However, 64-bit is a very demanding technical challenge, and not something easily obtained. We still feel there is a lot of room left in the 32-bit envelope. Our recent refactor of the autogen system was a great example of this. We were able to reduce the memory footprint of an autogen tree by 17x. As we get smarter and the DX11 engine continues to evolve we will pursue many new opportunities for memory savings and performance increases. We've already had developers reach out to us and tell us how they are now able to pack more and more autogen into their solutions and add-ons because of the recent changes. Will 2.0 model icing? We've added in ways for developers to define their own simulations and systems, and incorporate them into the Prepar3D world. Other companies have figured out ways to do this in previous platforms by using direct memory access, but those methods will have to be tailored every time an update occurs. That isn't a problem for other platforms that are end of life, but in a platform like Prepar3D that is constantly evolving and being updated it makes it hard for the developer to keep that add-on compatible. We've partnered with all the add-on developers that have reached out to us to provide formal interfaces and APIs to previous parts of the system they used to have to use hacks or memory access to reach. In addition to simconnect we've added a new PDK (Prepar3D Development Kit) API that brings much greater control to all aspects of the system. Small examples of this include full control over the cameras, so add-on developers can render custom camera into rear-view mirrors for example, and they can choose what not to render in those mirrors to keep the performance hit to a minimum. They can then apply a custom post process to add some glare or a fisheye effect to the mirror. Our new APIs really allow a whole new level of immersion to developers to create Prepar3D content. Is there a difference in the damage model in 2.0? We've added the simulation of vehicle health and damage characteristics in the Professional Plus version of Prepar3D to support our military customers. If you're not using that version, then you still have the same damage model from previous platforms. Shadows add greatly to the realism of flying along with a performance hit. Has the implementation of DX11 affected this area? It has, greatly. With v2.2 we recently added in the ability for clouds to cast shadows. Dynamic shadows really add to the immersion of the student and trainees, and we are very proud of our shadow system we've engineered for Prepar3D v2. We had a lot of challenges with the shadows that most developers don't face, as we have to simulate and shadow the whole world. Shadows are a perfect example of a new feature that takes advantage of modern day graphics cards. The faster your graphics card, the less fill-rate bound you will be and the more graphics card dependent features you can employ. The cloud and terrain shadow distances available in the UI might seem unattainable now, but in a year or so the graphics cards out then might be able to handle them with ease. We want the platform to continue to be able to scale as hardware improves, both CPU and graphics cards. Have any changes been made to AI traffic in 2.0? Not in the core platform. We have added additional AI "behaviors" to support military training in our Professional Plus version. For the general student or trainee, there are several great add-ons that can fill your Prepar3D with AI aircraft if you have those requirements. For the things that ecosystem and Prepar3D solution developers are able to develop, we want to support and enable them to make the best add-ons they can, we don't want to enter their space. Does Prepar3D plan to support sloped runways? We will support sloped runways, and provide the mechanism and interfaces for developers to support sloped runways in the future, yes. We're actually already excited to see some of the sloped runway add-ons the Prepar3D Development Networks companies will come up with! How will DX11 affect mesh resolution in 2.0? With us now being able to render the terrain on the graphics card, we can employ tessellation to refine the terrain mesh. This also allows us to do some neat things like assigning specular values to landclasses, so that snow is shinier, etc. This also allows us to put in things like the new Time Preview functionality which allow you to dynamically change the time of day. Having the GPU handling the bulk of the graphics processing obviously frees up the CPU. How will this translate in terms of quality and performance? There are two ways to bottleneck a 3D simulation platform like Prepar3D - overloading the CPU causes you to be CPU-bound, and overloading the graphics card causes you to be fill-rate bound, you are essentially having the graphics card draw more than it can render at any given frame. Most everyone is familiar in ways that the previous platform was CPU-bound, as it required the CPU to most of the simulation and scene processing. With our new rendering engine, we are able to move traditional CPU work over to the GPU, freeing up the CPU to do other things. Traditionally since the graphics card was not being used, users would override the anti-aliasing settings and primarily only use the graphics card for AA. With v2 we are able to tessellate the terrain and 3D 'ultra' water waves on the graphics card, instance the autogen trees and building on the graphics card, utilize the graphics card for lighting effects like HDR, or custom AA processes like FXAA, not to mention our new dynamic real-time shadow system. Have any changes been made in multi monitor support - both full screen and windowed mode? We continue to work to make sure that multi-monitor and multi-touchscreen simulators have the support they need to be operational. This ensures making sure we handle touch inputs the right way, as well as ensuring we save off monitor and panel positions and locations across devices. Coming under the heading of "Tooting your own horn" - what would YOU like to say about Prepar3D 2.0? V2 really has so much new capability in it, it's hard to just toot once. Most of our customers are familiar with the graphical or performance improvements, but there are so many things we've added for developers and options now available that aren't being utilized yet, that once they are, I'm sure folks will continue to be amazed by what is possible in this platform. SimDirector is also a pretty amazing new feature we've added that the online community hasn't really begun to rally around, but I think would have some amazing use cases that could be leveraged. It is a modern tool that makes creating missions or learning experiences in Prepar3D much more robust and much, much easier. A lot of add-on developers ship complex manuals and procedures, but they could easily create tutorials or startup procedure tutorials in SimDirector. You could start the plane in any state, and then guide the user through smooth camera zooms and panning, as well as new on screen text and graphical callouts to go through a startup procedure. You can have it be interactive as well and grade the student on how they are doing, or also disable user input and show the student in Prepar3D how to start it up. You can also use SimDirector to take control of the flight dynamics as well and show students how to handle stalls or other complex situations. Can you expand a little on the reduction in VAS footprint with the autogen trees? You all should head over to the Prepar3D forums and thank Beau for that one. Beau is extremely innovative and really dug in and refactored the autogen system. This is a great example of what is now possible in the Prepar3D v2 platform and with our new DirectX 11 rendering engine. As I mentioned before, we feel there is still a lot of untapped potential to continue to improve what is possible with Prepar3D v2, and with each revision of v2 we will continue to blend in existing performance improvements and enhancements as well as new features for both end users and developers. What type of performance hit can be expected with cloud shadows enabled? That depends on what graphics card you're running, and what graphics card dependent features you are also running. The great news is that graphics cards are continuously being updated. We didn't limit the functionality in the platform so that a current computer could run everything at max settings. We are a platform, so we need to support a variety of uses and users. Some are flying at 30,000 feet and want great weather effects asd volumetric fog, others might be in an ATC room and only need to render the scene very close. How do YOU rate P3D as far as keeping on track with your development plan? I'm very proud of what we've been able to accomplish in the last five months that v2 has been out. We've essentially published three versions, v2, 2.1 and now 2.2, with patches, as well as a few hotfixes mixed in there. I'm extremely proud of my development team and what new and innovative features and solutions to existing problems they've been able to come up with. I would also like to take a moment to thank the ecosystem of developers and sites like FlightSim.Com that help and inform users about Prepar3D and also provide help and troubleshooting support for our users. You all are an invaluable resource for the Prepar3D community and we sincerely appreciate all you do. I also wanted to take a minute and let the FlightSim.Com users know a little bit more about our development plans for 2014. We are planning a couple more updates to v2 this year. A couple of things we are currently working on is making the dynamic and ultra water perform and look better, adding formal SLI support (though through the existing implementation we've outlined on our forums some users are already seeing some very nice performance gains) as well as terrain paging performance. We are also currently looking into a variety of issues that users have been reporting, the cloud 'spinning' is a good example. Again, thanks for taking the time Vic to let us speak to your users! Wesley Bard Software Manager, Prepar3D Program Lockheed Martin Corporation www.prepar3d.com Read previous interview

Interview: Wesley Bard Of Lockheed Martin By Victor Baron About Wes Bard Q: What is your role for Lockheed Martin and the Prepar3D team? A: I am a software manager at Lockheed Martin's Mission Systems and Training business, and I am the technical lead for the Prepar3D® team. In this role, I manage our development team and ensure that we are incorporating feedback from the Prepar3D community into future releases. Q: When did you first start working with flight simulators? Do you have an interest in real aviation and are you involved in it in any way other than what you do for Lockheed Martin? Tell us about any experiences you've had in Real World Aviation? A: My background is in software engineering, but aviation has interested me for quite awhile. I look forward to getting up in a Cessna 172 whenever I can. In fact, several of us on the Prepar3D development team are studying towards various licenses. I'm enjoying ground school at the moment. About The Company Q: What was Lockheed Martin's reason for deciding to develop a flight simulation program? A: Lockheed Martin continuously looks for new and cost-effective ways to help our customers rise to the challenges of tomorrow. Thirty years ago, Lockheed Martin worked with customers to introduce simulation to maximize the training experience. Our Mission Systems and Training business currently provides training systems for 36 military aircraft variants, including the most advanced training system ever developed, the F-35 Lightning II. These training systems are engineered to provide the shortest path to learning by incorporating simulation. In 2009, Lockheed Martin had an opportunity to enter an intellectual property licensing agreement with Microsoft to further develop its ESP™ technology. Lockheed Martin launched our version of the simulation software, Prepar3D®, in 2010 for immersive learning and training. This is a natural fit for our business as we look to reduce costs for our customers by moving training tasks from aircraft to full mission simulators, and from full mission simulators to part-task and desktop trainers for the right level of technology to meet the learning objective. Q: Does Lockheed Martin use the simulator in the real world aviation side of the company and if so how? A: Absolutely, we work across our corporation to advance global security technologies every day, including with our Aeronautics business which develops mobility aircraft like the C-5 and C-130, fighters like the F-16, F-22 and F-35 and trainers like the T-50. Here's an example. Recently, the U.S. Air Force noted an opportunity to provide cockpit familiarization and procedures training to C-130J aircrews before they enter full fidelity simulators for mission-based training. Lockheed Martin developed a quickly reconfigurable platform called the Multi-Function Training Aid to provide familiarization and procedures training for aviation and ground vehicles. This training tool uses Prepar3D and commercial-off-the-shelf hardware, and it has integrated touch screen panels, switches, dials and simulated controls. For C-130J training, we worked with our Aeronautics business to equip the Multi-Function Training Aid with the operational flight program of the actual aircraft. Today, Air Force Special Operations personnel train on the systems at Cannon and Kirtland Air Force Bases. Q: Where does the Prepar3D department sit in the structure of Lockheed Martin? A: Our Prepar3D program team is part of Lockheed Martin's Mission Systems and Training business area which develops training systems for the aviation, ground, maritime and cyber domains. Mission Systems and Training also provides platforms like the Aegis Combat System, Littoral Combat Ship and unmanned K-MAX as well as alternative energy solutions. Q: In what ways does your team interact with the real world aviation side of the company? A: Vic, let us know if the MFTA example also addresses this question. We work across our corporation to address our customers' challenges every day! About The Product Q: Please tell us what you personally feel is one of the most interesting or exciting uses you have seen for the Prepar3D product? A: We are really proud and excited that Prepar3D is inspiring the next generation of engineers and technologists through our academic license. Our decision to offer an academic license at reduced pricing is an extension of our philanthropic support to encourage kids to explore science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) careers. In our increasingly complex global environment, economic health and national security relies on cultivating a pipeline of trained and capable technical talent. The National Flight Academy is one of the organizations we support, and their mission is to engage young people in learning through stories of aviation. Over the next five years, the National Flight Academy plans to reach more than 60,000 students through their classroom, community and in-residence programs. Q: Prepar3D furthers the development of Microsoft's ESP product while maintaining compatibility with Microsoft Flight Simulator X. Can you tell us in what ways Prepar3D has been enhanced? A: Beyond our military customers, we saw applications for training by private pilots, commercial flight schools, civil agencies and students. To transport users to any place on earth, from underwater to suborbital space, we expanded the simulation to support ground and maritime missions. Here are some of the enhancements we've made in the 1.0 to 1.4 releases of Prepar3D: Global land class update - Millions of square kilometers of the earth have been checked and upgraded appropriately to represent the urban environment more accurately. One of our developers had this idea and worked on the update for a little over a month. After reviewing the datasets involved we were able to make correlations that helped identify which of the hundreds of landclass types should be improved. The datasets were processed in both GIS and SQL databases that are used to handling datasets with over 500 million points so we had technology on our side! We also went through a few iterations to make sure the changes are unique to the regions. Downtown Norfolk scenery - Prepar3D offers the most accurate city representation, scenery that was created directly from aerial photos and contains 12 cm imagery. Our friends at Pictometry developed this scenery through a process they developed. The land class changes mentioned above also made a huge difference - the scenery is more detailed, accurate and crisp than offered before. We also have the ability to go underwater with the bathymetry scenery on the U.S. coastlines and the ability to adjust the transparency of the water so you can better see the shorelines. Shader 3.0 and increased texture sizes - A modernized shader model is offered for higher quality graphics and increased texture limits to 4096 x 4096. If you compare this texture upgrade in digital camera terms, we increased the maximum resolution from 1 megapixel to 16 megapixels. This allows for much higher fidelity visuals. Specifically, the Shader 3.0 update allows for more instructions per shader, which we leveraged to create our new translucent water surface. It also improves performance on some hardware due to driver optimizations. Bathymetry - Users can take their simulation experience under water with submarines and the U.S. Geological Survey's coastal bathymetry. This feature includes the ability to import users' custom bathymetry models using the Software Development Kit (SDK). The bathymetric data is the equivalent to an underwater digital elevation model and provides the ability to add underwater terrain anywhere in the world. This adds new perspectives for submarine, aerial water landings and boating training. Multi-channel - Users can harness the power of multiple computers to increase the quality of Prepar3D's graphics, stability and performance on huge monitors or multiple monitors. Prepar3D offers multi-player and shared cockpit modes, and we wanted to expand those features and rev up the program's performance for large or multiple monitors. We leveraged the existing software code to allow for multi-screen simulation, spreading out the graphics processing across several computers. Multi-channel works in two modes. The first option allows monitors to be placed individually, allowing for full 360-degree wraparound display systems and offering more than one view per computer. The other mode can be used for flat or nearly flat video walls and supports perspective-correcting technologies (OmniMap from Scalable Display Technologies and EasyBlend from Elumenati). IR sensor camera options - Users can experience night vision and infrared sensor camera options to enhance military mission or night flying training. We filter the vehicles, auto generated elements and other scenery objects based on relative heat values and color the screen based on that information. The challenge lies in separating all the vehicles and scenery objects into temperature categories, and we developed a new process for that when developing the camera options. Performance - We continually focus on improving performance to create a user experience second to none. Throughout our version 1 series of Prepar3D software, the team has improved upon many legacy issues for performance gains. The community plays a vital role in improving performance by citing their experiences in our online forums; the forums are a venue that allows our developers valuable insight into performance of the software. The statistics are showing better and better performance and that is something all of us on the Prepar3D development team believe illustrates a great partnership with the user community. Q: Tell us how you go about your product/software quality assurance how you find and resolve any issues found during the software development process? A: Prepar3D has a varied customer base that uses the program in different ways, which in turn provides a continuous feedback loop to the software development team. Another key to our software quality assurance is our forums where end users and developers alike are active and are keen to provide their feedback and ideas about the product. Feedback from forums have helped shape features in Prepar3D, such as the multi-monitor capability, saving a multi-screen cockpit layout on start-up, additional sensor and camera options and numerous performance improvements and bug fixes. Also, we are focused on ensuring our main Prepar3D developers are a key part of our release process by providing them with beta software in advance of major releases. We look forward to this summer when our new beta software is active in the development community. Q: ModelConverter helps convert static models from other simulation systems, and Model Placer helps people place large numbers of models in the scenery. Could you tell us a little about these and if you have plans to create a product to help create aircraft add-ons? A: The ModelConverter and ModelPlacer are additional tools we sell on our web site that make it easier to convert and place large numbers of models. These tools are optional and they aren't required to use the Prepar3D SDK or build content for Prepar3D. We are excited about the future of the Prepar3D SDK Modeling Tools for 3D Studio Max 2013, which will allow content creators and developers to use the 2013 version and all of its latest modeling features to develop for Prepar3D. Involving the development community is a key part of shaping the software, and we plan to offer these new tools for beta testing. Q: What is the most challenging aspect of the project? A: We are listening to our user community and increasing performance. Prepar3D is well on a path to take advantage of modern day computing hardware, moving away from the tradition of being CPU bound. We are now updating our rendering system to support DirectX11 and development is progressing nicely. With DirectX11 support, Prepar3D can leverage features such as hardware instancing, shaders, GPU-based particle systems, tessellation and multi-threaded rendering. Q: Can you share with us more (in general if possible) about where you see Prepar3D going in the future? Tell us more about what we will be able to do or features you might have planned? A: Every day, we see more and more developers who are creating peripheral products that work with Prepar3D to enhance the simulation experience. We love developers and encourage the development of software add-ons and hardware. They are creating amazing aircraft, weather effects and scenery. Developers' work expands the options available to the Prepar3D community for tailored learning experiences. One of the key reasons we wanted to make sure we maintained backwards compatibility with FSX was to facilitate an easy migration of developer content over to Prepar3D for more immersive learning and training. Our team's development work is now directed to further amping up performance and adding weapons training for our military customers. Performance - As we mentioned earlier, feedback from developers and users in the community indicate that performance is a high priority. We're excited about the future of Prepar3D's new rendering capability and are eager to be able to release it to the community in 2013. Weapons training - Prepar3D will soon offer weapons training to allow our military customers a training capability for weapon selection and target acquisition. We're honored to be part of engaging people all over the world in learning through simulation. Thanks for this great interview, Vic, and we welcome feedback about Prepar3D at our web site, www.prepar3d.com Vic, we are sometimes asked if Prepar3D can be used for entertainment. If you'd like to include a question about entertainment, here is an answer. A: Lockheed Martin does not offer Prepar3D for entertainment, and we have no plans to enter the entertainment space. Our end-user license agreement explains that Prepar3D can be used for purposes other than personal/consumer entertainment. Our development focus is on learning and training. We are sometimes asked where Prepar3D can be used. Location is not a consideration in the end-user license agreement; it only matters how the software will be used. We see the core audiences for our products as: Professionals - This license is intended for professional skills training. This group could include private pilots, commercial flight schools, military personnel, civil organizations such as firefighters/emergency response or students pursuing a technical degree or an advanced degree such as a masters or PhD. Students - We launched an academic license recently at a reduced price for educational purposes at the undergraduate college level and below (students in elementary, middle, high school or pursuing a bachelor's degree). This is an extension of our philanthropic support for STEM education to engage the next generation of technologists and engineers. Developers - To provide the best experience for all companies and individuals working with Prepar3D, we provide a standardized interface and tools so that anyone can create Prepar3D-compatible products. Encouraging development is the driving force behind offering open access to an online SDK, tools and simconnect interface. For the individuals or companies who are interested in developing aircraft models, scenery, terrains and weather effects for Prepar3D, we offer a Prepar3D developer license. Wesley Bard - Lockheed Martin Review conducted by Vic Baron Learn more about Prepar3D at: www.prepar3d.com