Vortex Dynamics 6.3 is packed with enhancements and new capabilities, including:
  • Vortex Human
  • Role Playing
  • Graphics Enhancements
  • Real-time Plotting
  • New Cables
  • Vortex Editor Enhancements
We are always focusing on ways to make it easier for you to create simulation applications. Here are some of the release highlights for Vortex 6.3
 
Vortex Human
 
Now, you can add lifelike human characters to your simulations with Vortex Human. Whether it’s a signaller giving hand signals to a crane operator or soldiers patrolling in a military scenario, the characters you create in Vortex Human respond to high-level commands and travel through the environment as directed by you with natural, seamless transitions from one activity to the next.

Vortex Human characters interact with their environment—for example, by climbing stairs or ladders, pushing objects or avoiding collisions with lifelike accuracy and physics: thanks to the underlying Vortex Dynamics engine.

With Vortex Human, you can create and configure trainee avatars and avatar points of view and add non-player characters (NPCs) with assigned AI scripts and forbidden/permitted zones.
 
Role Playing
 
Vortex 6.3 makes it easier to conduct immersive team training, while giving powerful new pedagogical tools to trainers

Now you can create different roles—such as tank driver and gunner or crane operator and signaller and dynamically assign these roles during training.

Instructors can assign roles such as signaller or operator to students before the training session and change them at any time during the session. They can also take control of any of the roles at any time or "fly through" the scene without being tied to any specific role.

Students experience visuals, sounds and motion specific to their role, along with their equipment controls and screens. When roles change, sensory inputs adapt to the change, whether students are operating the equipment, performing an inspection or signalling.

Simulation engineers can configure and add multiple roles to a simulation scenario and test them in the Vortex Editor by switching from one role to the other.
 
Graphics Enhancements
 
Vortex 6.3 provides users with new graphics possibilities such as the ability to apply dynamic text to textures (e.g. for interactive billboard or container numbering) or add camera post-processing effects such as:
  • B&W
  • Noise
  • High-dynamic-range Imaging
 
Real-time Plotting
 
Users can now graphically plot one or several numerical values over time during simulation using the Plotter function for comparison against engineering data or field measurements. Data can be logged to the database for later retrieval and analysis.
 
New Cables
 
With the addition of subsea umbilicals, risers and flowlines (SURF) cables, Vortex 6.3’s subsea simulation capabilities are more flexible than ever.

Simulation engineers can rapidly place and shape SURF cables directly from a point-and-click interface and create fully realistic subsea environments for planning, accessibility studies, visualization and training.

With the ability to interact with all the cables normally found in a production field, ROV pilot trainees can familiarize themselves with a simulated environment that looks and feels just like the real thing.
 
Vortex Editor Enhancements
 
Vortex 6.3 includes dozens of enhancements to the Vortex Editor that makes it easier and faster to create simulation-based applications, including:
  • Incorporation of graphic assets in explorer tree
  • Ability to browse object properties
  • Python script import capability
  • Full control of snap command when attaching mechanisms or assemblies