3D Terrain of Continental USA Plus Alaska and Hawaii (CONUS++)









MVRsimulation's seamless 3D terrain of Continental US plus Alaska and Hawaii (CONUS++) is constructed with DTED level 1 elevation data and with natural color imagery ranging from 0.025 to 1 meter-per-pixel (mpp) resolution for the CONUS area itself and DTED 0 to DTED 2 elevation data for Alaska and Hawaii with natural color imagery ranging from 0.30 to 2 mpps resolution.
Overview
Covering an area over 1,900-geocells, the terrain includes high-resolution insets of several areas of interest including military installations and urban areas. Each high-resolution inset contains image data ranging in resolution from 0.025 mpp to 0.75 mpp. Built with MVRsimulation’s Terrain Tools for Esri® ArcGIS®, the round-earth VRSG terrain tiles reside in a geocentric coordinate system. These tiles are suitable for real-time visualization and simulation applications that use MVRsimulation VRSG, including synthetic vision, glass-cockpit displays, intelligence surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) applications, close-air-support (CAS) exercises, and fixed-wing cockpit simulation.
The CONUS++ dataset can also serve as a baseline to which you can add higher-fidelity information to refine the database in a given area of interest. For example, you can add high-resolution aerial imagery or LIDAR elevation data, GPS point surveys, or 3D point features such as buildings, trees, targets, and runway models. You can make these additions as they become available, even in real-time if information is provided directly from sensors in the field. The VRSG terrain architecture automatically signals any listening runtime visualizations that new data is available to be paged into memory. This update flexibility is:
- Efficient - conventional simulations applications do not need to recompile entire dataset upon receipt of new data.
- Scalable - independent assets can be applied to both construction and visualization.
- Innovative - mission rehearsal and battle damage assessment tasks can now include a 3D visualization component that is sensor-data driven.
MVRsimulation updates this 3D terrain on an ongoing basis as new source data become available. The CONUS++ 3D terrain is "Additional Materials" and is provided "as is" as described in our software license agreement. Although MVRsimulation might modify or enhance the original source imagery, some visual artifacts from the source imagery might remain in the terrain tiles.
With this terrain, you can add culture assets from MVRsimulation’s robust model libraries and construct pattern-of-life scenarios using MVRsimulation’s Scenario Editor.
You can build higher-resolution terrain tiles with Terrain Tools for Esri ArcGIS with your own source data to refine the terrain for a given area of interest. You can also request terrain enhancements or higher resolution terrain tiles from MVRsimulation.
Areas of Interest
The CONUS++ terrain contains several high-resolution areas of interest to our customers, such as airfields and training sites, which are built with insets of higher resolution imagery and elevation and geolocated, and often geospecific, cultural features. Many of these areas are modeled from photographs taken at the actual site.
The terrain contains two AOIs (and a forthcoming third AOI) that were built with 2 cm per-pixel resolution imagery collected by MVRsimulation's small UAS (SUAS):
- Prospect Square area at the Yuma Proving Ground, AZ.
- Two target ranges at the Fallon Range Training Complex, Naval Strike and Air Warfare Center (NSAWC) at Naval Air Station (NAS) Fallon, NV.
- (Forthcoming in Q1 2022) Amarillo International Airport, Amarillo, TX, which also includes 5 mm imagery collected by a second SUAS.
Specifications
Below are specifications for MVRsimulation’s CONUS++ terrain dataset in round-earth VRSG terrain format (MDS).
Dataset Size | 1,490 geocells (14,900,000 sq km) |
Size On Disk | 11.12 TB |
Terrain Post Spacing | 50 meters-per-post |
Elevation Source | 3 arcseconds (70-100 meter) |
Terrain Imagery | 1 meters-per-pixel (mpp) natural color imagery from the Simulator Database Facility (SDBF) at Kirtland Air Force Base, distributed for government simulation training only, with high-resolution imagery ranging from 0.24 to 0.50 mpp for several urban areas and most US military installations. Also 0.025 inset imagery collected by MVRsimulation's SUAS. |
Dataset Size | 430 geocells (1,717,854 sq km) |
Size On Disk | 48.3 GB |
Terrain Post Spacing | 50 meters-per-post |
Elevation Source | DTED0, DTED1, DTED2, SRTM, and GTOPO30 |
Terrain Imagery | 15 mpp NaturalVue Landsat, 5 mpp Fairbanks and Anchorage, 1 mpp imagery Fairbanks and Wainwright, 60 cm imagery Anchorage, Eielson AFB, Allen Army Airfield. |
Dataset Size | 14 geocells (28,311 sq km) |
Size On Disk | 40.8 GB |
Terrain Post Spacing | 10 meters-per-post |
Elevation Source | NED 10 m |
Terrain Imagery | 0.25 mpp, 0.30 mpp and 2 mpp of Island of Hawaii, 0.30 mpp of Maui, Kahoolawe, Lanai, Molokai, Kauai, and Niíihau, 0.50 mpp of Oahu Hickman AFB. |
Delivery
MVRsimulation’s CONUS++ 3D terrain is delivered on six external hard drives. Each drive includes geospecific terrain of a region constructed from natural color imagery ranging from 0.24 to 1 mpp resolution. Each drive also includes 4 mpp resolution tiles derived from the 1 mpp terrain for customers who need a more compact version of the terrain. The hard drives are organized by region as shown in the following table. Click the thumbnail image of a region to view an enlarged image:
How to Order
The terrain is provided in MVRsimulation's round-earth terrain format and will only run with a valid VRSG version 6 software license with current software maintenance.
MVRsimulation’s CONUS++ 3D terrain is available for purchase to customers who are US Government agencies or contractors (for official use only). Customers can duplicate the data at their discretion as long as the data is used in conjunction with a valid VRSG license. For US-domestic use only, not available for export.
The CONUS++ 3D terrain is available in regions (as described in the table above). Regions are distributed on portable, external 4 TB drives.
The entirety of CONUS++ can be obtained by purchasing:
- All six region terrain drives.
- Complete world terrain (which includes CONUS++) delivered on a direct-attached, large-volume (DALV) storage device compatible with laptop/notebook and desktop computer configurations requiring USB 3.1.
A fee covers processing large quantities of data into round-earth VRSG format and hard drive distribution media.
You can request a quote for the CONUS++ 3D terrain directly from MVRsimulation by consulting the Price List and then filling out the quote request form and providing the name of the region (as described in the table above).
Other Resources
- Terrain products from the Simulator Database Facility (SDBF) at Kirtland Air Force Base. SDBF is a central repository and distribution point of terrain databases (including MVRsimulation's terrain) that are available for DOD programs.
- Terrain products from the Air National Guard Visual Database Development Team. This team produces high fidelity and fully immersive visual databases to support multiple Air National Guard training devices. These databases are in MVRsimulation's round-earth terrain format to provide out-the-window VRSG views in both ground based and flight training devices.