Integrating legacy ESVS displays in the Unity game engine

Niklas Peinecke; Johannes M. Ernst

doi:10.1117/12.2305694

2 May 2018 Integrating legacy ESVS displays in the Unity game engine

Niklas Peinecke, Johannes M. Ernst

Proceedings Volume 10642, Degraded Environments: Sensing, Processing, and Display 2018; 106420J (2018) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2305694
Event: SPIE Defense + Security, 2018, Orlando, FL, United States

Abstract

Current augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) displays are targeted at entertainment and home education purposes. However, these headsets can be used for prototyping and developing display concepts to be used in aviation. In previous papers we have demonstrated the use of helmet mounted enhanced and synthetic vision systems (ESVS) displays that have been implemented on commercially available VR displays. One of the most widely used engines for developing VR and AR applications is the Unity game engine. While it supports a broad range of display hardware it can be challenging to integrate legacy ESVS software, since its main purpose is the fast development of virtual worlds. To avoid a complete re-write of such displays we demonstrate techniques to integrate legacy software in Unity. In detail, we show how render plugins or texture buffers can be used to display existing ESVS output in a Unity project. We show advantages and drawbacks of these different approaches. Further, we detail problems in case the source software is written for a different platform, for example, when integrating OpenGL displays in a DirectX environment. While the demonstrated techniques are implemented and tested with the Unity game engine, they can be used for other target game and render engines, too.

Citation Download Citation

Niklas Peinecke and Johannes M. Ernst "Integrating legacy ESVS displays in the Unity game engine", Proc. SPIE 10642, Degraded Environments: Sensing, Processing, and Display 2018, 106420J (2 May 2018); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2305694

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