The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) maintains an airspace and airport simulation model called Simmod to test and analyze the impact of various air traffic scenarios. Simmod is an event-step simulation model which traces the movement of indivudual aircraft and simulated Air Traffic Control actions to ensure aircraft operate within procedural rules. Users control the timing of the simulation and provide data regarding the occurrence of various simulation events such as aircraft arrival/departure, airport configuration plan changes and changes in weather conditions. Simmod output consists of reports which provide various statistics such as aircraft delay, travel time and fuel consumption.
Simmod output is typically displayed in a 2D window that composites aircraft over a CAD representation of the airport. ECS developed a 3D visualization component that allows Simmod users to interactively navigate within the simulation model. Simmod uses a node-link structure to simulate the movement of individual aircraft along airspace routes, runways, taxiways and gates. The ECS tool imports 3D models of an airport and correlates the node-link coordinates from Simmod into the 3D model. It then imports the Simmod log files to accurately animate aircraft and display the same Simmod information in a 3D interactive environment.
