Development of 3D Terrain Visualization for Navigation Simulation using a Unity 3D Development Tool

Abstract

3D visualization of navigation simulation is to visualize the environment conditions (e.g. nearby ships, dynamic characteristics, environment, terrain, etc) for any users on ships at sea. Realistic 3D visualization enables the users to be immersed to it and guarantees the reliability of the simulation. In particular, terrain visualization contains many virtual objects, so it is time and cost-intensive for object modelling. This paper proposes a 3D terrain visualization method that can be realized in a short time and with low cost by using the Unity 3D development tool. The 3D terrain visualization system requires bathymetric and elevation terrains, and Aids to Navigations (AtoNs) to be realized. It also needs to include 3D visualization objects including bridges, buildings and port facilities for more accurate simulation. Bathymetric and AtoN elements are acquired from ENC, and the elevation element is acquired from SRTM v4.1 digital elevation chart database developed by NASA. Then, the bathymetric and elevation terrains are generated, and the satellite images are superposed by using this terrain information. The longitudinal and latitudinal information of the AtoNs are converted to the 3-axis information to position the AtoN locations. The 3D objects such as bridges, buildings and port facilities are generated and the terrain visualization is completed. The proposed method realizes more realistic 3D terrain visualization of Busan Port.