Industry Interview: MetaVR
Co-Founder and CEO
MetaVR
W. Garth Smith is the co-founder and chief executive officer at MetaVR. He acquired his interest in distributed simulation while working as one of a team of simulation engineers responsible for the Bolt, Beranek and Newman German version of SimNet simulators in the early 1990s.
Q: Can you describe MetaVR’s history and evolution?
A: We got started in 1997, shortly after 3dfx Interactive released the first commercially successful game-level PC graphics card and Microsoft released the DirectX game API. We initially provided 3-D visuals systems for the stealth DIS viewer market and then, in terms of classic disruptive technology, moved up stream to support multi-channel highend simulators.
Q: What are some of your key products in the DoD training and simulation industry?
A: Our foundation product is the Virtual Reality Scene Generator [VRSG] which is a multipurpose 3-D render engine with support for very large geospecific terrain databases at high speed with sensor views. Our Terrain Tools product generates 3-D terrain for our render engine that, when coupled with our 3-D content pipeline, creates some very compelling real-time virtual worlds.
Q: What are some of the new training/ simulation technologies MetaVR is developing?
A: Our biggest initiative for new technology is a complete rewrite of our render engine slated for 2012. The goal is to maintain the things we currently do for the simulation market that our customers rely on us for when building rigorous and realistic geospecific simulators, while embracing more of the game technology that has become available in recent years.
Q: What is an example of your success in the military, and what are some of your goals specific to the training/simulation industry over the next year?
A: Our biggest success to date is that we have a large installed base of users that trusts us to support their simulation needs. As an example, this customer relationship has allowed MetaVR to become the largest supplier of UAV 3-D commercial visualization software licenses for the U.S. military with well over 1,000 active VRSG licenses in the field. There is no other company that supplies more commercial UAV 3-D visualization software to the U.S. military than MetaVR.
Q: How do customers benefit from MetaVR varied resources and expertise?
A: Meeting the needs of our large installed base of extremely varied applications helps make our software versatile. We have been able to achieve this versatility by not charging our customers for new software features. This makes our end-users, which we consider to be subject matter experts, very forthcoming in helping us design our software to meet a wide range of needs. Q: Secretary Gates has called for greater cost effectiveness and efficiencies. What does MetaVR offer that will help the operational and training organizations meet the secretary’s challenge?
A: MetaVR offers software that actually works as advertised. Recently, a new customer told us that our software “works flawlessly, it’s too good to be an IG.”
Q: You’ve given some insight into what you are working on near-term, but can you tell me what your view is of simulation technology in general? Can the technology make a substantial leap ahead from where it is now to create more realism and greater fidelity?
A: Currently, the technology in the simulation industry is being held back by a lack of will and vision. Contract awards are being granted to proposals submitted with the lowest cost on paper, without any competitive flyoff to verify the vendor claims. The technology leap ahead for more realism is readily possible; one simply has to remove the politics and inefficient awards that are wasting money on a large scale.
Q: Are most of the innovations in the simulation field being driven by demands from the commercial world or the by military requirements?
A: The commercial development of Microsoft DirectX and 3-D game graphics cards to include game consoles in parallel with the geographical information systems software market have created the single largest collective advancement in military simulation in the last 15 years. These economies of scale have created both a technology platform as well as a labor market with skill sets that are ideal for real-time virtual world construction for the military simulation market. The military simulation market is getting further behind the commercial markets in terms of implementations due to the inertia in the visual simulation market because of the lack of true competition when awarding visual system contracts. ♦
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