As the overall fidelity and performance of simulation systems increases, there is a need for improved representation of transportation features. Roads, bridges, tunnels, and other drivable features need to be accurate representations of the real world and interoperable across a confederate of training systems. Improvements in the fidelity of these features in the past have primarily been focused on increased texture resolution and integration of hand modeled features. However, as the capabilities and expectations of ground based training systems increases, there is a need for major upgrades to the representation of transportation features.

This paper details the research and implementation efforts to greatly improve the appearance and functionality of transportation features on simulation systems. The goal of this effort is to model detailed geospecific roads, bridges, and tunnels that can be used in virtual and constructive simulation systems.

Road networks and associated features have typically been represented as two-dimensional GIS linear features with attribution. However, in reality, roads are much more complex. Roads can vary in width, number of lanes, and driving rules at any point along the road. Placement of traffic lights and signs requires knowledge of the traffic laws and lane types for each lane in a road. Complex intersections such as freeway interchanges often involve complex three-dimensional interactions between roads where some roads merge, some roads intersect, and some roads pass over or under other roads. Thus, enhanced data models were required to represent these complex features.

Our solution includes a standalone topology analysis tool that converts the GIS data features to an optimized OpenDRIVE format that is capable of representing road geometry and topology. A model generation toolkit can read this format and output textured geometry for a wide variety of simulation tools and terrain generation platforms. Finally, we describe the integration with a production database generation program's workflow.