Client Email

Date: Wed, 17 Sep 1997 18:01:58 -0700

Hello Nau-Team,

Sorry It has taken me so long in responding. As I mentioned before, I'm hoping for a little relief after Oct 1. Let me hit some of the items that where contained in some of your message.

1) Road trip Out to visit. I like the idea and so does my manager. I'm trying to do some leg work at this end to set it up. I will touch bases on this again next week.

2) Source Code for the Standard template Library. I've checked and the Sun version is public domain. This means that I can ship out a tar file. A book that would be great to add to your collections is "C++ Programmer's Guide to the Standard Template Library" by Mark Nelson ISBN 1-56884-314-3. This is the book we use here at the CSL.

3) Status of Non-Disclosure agreements. My boss two levels up has not had a chance to address this due to our many visitors in the last week and a half. When she gets a chance, I'll fax them. I'm expecting to do this on friday. I'll email when I've done that.

4) Status of tomorrow teleconference. I would like to skip the tele-con tomorrow. The CBS news will be interviewing my boss that needs to create the non-disclosure agreements. And I might be called upon to do a demo.

5) Project Description: I consider this a working document until we all have agreed on the final form.

------------------------------------------------------------------

The Conflict Simulation Lab (CSL) has a project to construct a X-window based movement route planner. The route planner will allow a user to select starting and ending positions and then generate a movement plan based on position costing functions. The route planner will use Livermore's polygonal terrain representation and be implemented in C++. The movement route will be both graphically displayed and optional written out to a data file.

Costing functions will be used to determine the selection of a route. Each costing function will contain several components that determine the value of the projected move. **NOTE** Some of these components are:

DISTANCE - Distance from current location to destination.

TIME - Time estimated to perform the current move.

CONCEALMENT - Amount of concealment provided by the terrain

Viewability - Measurements amount of viewable terrain

General Area Tokens - Weighting based on distance to general token. NOTE: weighting can be positive or negative. Is intended to denote locations of enemy positions or supporting positions.

General Area Tokens with Line-Of-Sight (LOS) - Like General Area tokens, but has different weighting if we can see the token position.

TERRAIN TYPE - weighting for terrain type. (Eg. Road might have a high rating to promote road travel)

Each of the components can be enabled/disabled. Additionally, the costing function will have a position, a radius of affect, a decay falloff vs the radius, and a time range that denotes when the costing function is valid.

SET OF COSTING FUNCTIONS: All costing functions will be bundled into a set. Each new movement leg will be costed against the "set" of costing functions. The intent is to provide a costing function near the starting position to encourage "fastest" movement and another costing function near the ending position to encourage "best Hiding" movement.

The NAU team will provide the flexibility to generate a user selected amount of moves at each position.

The NAU team will use software provided by the CSL as a foundation. This will include, reading of terrain files, creation of terrain objects, providing base LOS algorithms. Additionally, the NAU team is encouraged to provide feedback on where improvements on Livermore software.

----------------------------------------------------------------

I expect to iterate with you a bit on the project description. If you have any questions please call or email.

Tom Kelleher

Date: Fri, 03 Oct 1997 14:08:55 -0700

Hello Team,

I've uploaded a tar file of all of the header files in the JCATS environment. I'm hoping this will give you a flavor of the files we will be using.

I have NOT included the following:

1) Example test code showing how to use our libraries

2) Archive libraries of our code

3) GIF images of our screen

4) Sample Data File

I will be on leave for the rest of today and on monday. My test code will be using code from the "src/environment" directory. Please look at the "EnvironmentIntersection.H" file. This contain the methods that form the little state machine for processing our terrain polygons.

The Tar file named "nau98.tar" in the "nau1998" subdirectory contains all of the header files that we use for our entire product suite. It also contains the STL that I've mentioned.

Take care and I'll chat with you guys on tuesday.

Tom Kelleher

Date: Fri, 03 Oct 1997 14:19:47 -0700

Hello team,

I've just created a sun raster screen dump of our test game screen. Its also in the same directory as the tar file, and its named "testScreen.rs". This should give you a idea of what we are currently displaying and how your route planner screen might look like.

I might be in tomorrow, so there is a chance that I'll put together the example test code. If not, I'll email the team on tuesday.

Tom Kelleher