ACI's patent-pending Engine Agnostic Interface™ (EAI™) is middleware that enables system integrators to take any existing game engine, 3D rendering engine or legacy simulation platform and provide fully interoperable, highly realistic, fully immersive end-to-end simulation experiences.
ACI EAI
What’s ACI EAI™?
ACI's patent-pending Engine Agnostic Interface™ (EAI™) is middleware that enables system integrators to take any existing game engine, 3D rendering engine or legacy simulation platform and provide fully interoperable, highly realistic, fully immersive end-to-end simulation experiences. When linked to ACI’s TrainAsYouFight™, it enables any game engine to run on ACI hardware. This includes CryEngine and VBS2.
ACI’s EAI enables customers to develop cost-effective simulation solutions with minimal delivery time. This is accomplished by leveraging gaming technologies while maintaining technical superiority because the platform is agnostic to any game engine.
The ACI EAI™ architecture provides fully immersive, highly realistic and validated training experiences demanded by today’s war-fighters.
Customer Benefit: ACI and its customers can develop cost-effective simulation solutions with minimal time to market. This is accomplished by leveraging gaming technologies while maintaining technical superiority and currency due to the engine agnostic aspect of the platform
How Does ACI EAI™ Work?
Overview: The ACI EAI™ is composed of three runtime layers which model the flow of information in the simulator and provides a set of tools that enables interoperability with the outside environment.
ACI EAI™ Platform & Key Components:
Two Customer Options
| Option | Description |
| Stand-Alone Software Product | Can be embedded in any simulation systems |
| Embedded Software Product | Part of a complete ACI-developed system solution such as the ACI IGS™ or ACI TrainAsYouFigbt™ |
Immersion Layer
This layer allows for the interface of any virtual reality or other type of hardware device and focuses on the man-machine interface.
- ACI IGS™ system provides for total participant immersion in the process
- Renders the exercise in stereoscopic 3D using head-mounted displays
- Participants fully see and interact with one another as in a “live” environment.
- Realistically translates body movements, weapons use, tools use & hand gestures
- Trainees physically experience being struck & feel snow, wood, or metal underfoot
- Partial or full body tracking
- “Peripheral” device input (e.g. weapons & virtual gloves) allows users to naturally interact in the virtual environment.
Mission Control Data Management Layer
This layer is the heart of the ACI EAI™ based simulation system. It is composed of a full client/server-based distributed application with a graphical user interface for the operator and 2D overlay menu running on top of the Virtual Camera and AAR PC.
It provides the capabilities to:
- Configure and launch missions
- Manage users and throughput
- Automate the interaction of all software and hardware components
- Control and extract data from any game engine
- Conduct real-time management of the environment
- Create tailored training scenarios
- Gather all data in a back-end sybase database
- Completely track individual and mission statistics in order to complement the interactive visual after-action review (AAR) with relevant charts and graphs.
Interaction Layer
This layer represents the numerous simulation libraries that are integrated into a given game engine and allows the simulation of specific capabilities.
- Allows groups of up to 64 individuals to participate simultaneously in the simulation of any environment and in any situation.
- Includes the advanced artificial intelligence (AI) for friendly and opposing forces, damage models, ballistic data and many features focused on duplicating physical reality
- Enables supervisor oversight and interaction with the training participants via a virtual camera with AI.
- Identifies the most significant events in the scenario, tracks performance statistics for each trainee, and provides a detailed AAR.
What Makes ACI EAI™ Superior?
Interface Tools
Critical to the success of the ACI IGS™ (or any other ACI EAI™-driven simulation system, including those developed by other simulation systems integrators) is its ability to interface with legacy simulation systems.
No game engine has ever been developed with simulation interoperability standards in mind, as game engines are typically built with proprietary architectures and formats.
ACI has developed a series of tools to address this issue and to seamlessly interface these technologies from an environment standpoint (3D database) and from the activity occurring on each system (network traffic).
ACI EAI™ Database Module
- Allows the importing of 3D database industry formats and third party tools into ACI EAI™
- Specific format has import and export capabilities from/to any proprietary game engine 3D database.
- Enables the ACI IGS™ to use databases that are perfectly correlated with the ones running on the interfaced systems.
ACI EAI™ Customer Benefit 1
Dramatic improvements can be created using the engine tools provided to create a greater sense of reality:
- Building interiors
- Windows
- Balconies
- Doors
- Stairs
- Elevators
- Furniture
- More realistic textures
- Other street level objects
The Enhancing Power of ACI EAI™
Before & After Images
ACI EAI™ Customer Benefit 2: Because the connection between each component is managed by the ACI EAI™ Database Module, it can be used to create rich environments for legacy simulators. Thus content can be imported into an editor and then exported back into a useful format in record time.
ACI EAI™ Customer Benefit 3: The ACI EAI™ has plug-ins allowing the use of third party tools (e.g., aerial photos of a city can be used to create a 3D model of the outer walls of buildings along with textures).
Plug-Ins Allow Use Of Third Party Tools
ACI EAI™ Database Module
ACI EAI™ Customer Benefit 4: Include the full richness of information transitioning between game-based servers and clients while maintaining compliance with DIS and HLA standards |  |
ACI EAI™ Customer Benefit 5: Multiple simulators can be networked together using the Module and have full fidelity of vehicle physics and character animations even when using different game engines to render or generate them.
Technical Description:
The concept behind the ACI EAI™ is to have an Application Programming Interface (API) connect any game engine to a consolidated image of the simulation environment (i.e., a constructive image of the game engine being used).A separate constructive image allows ACI to develop simulation features and tools that interface with the image instead of the engine directly. This allows the isolation, in a defined platform, of simulation features from game engine features, which allows the rapid addition of features into any game engine by simply interfacing the ACI EAI™ API.
Future Scalability:
ACI EAI™ enables business scalability beyond dismounted infantry markets into other simulation domains (e.g., gunnery trainers, forward observer trainers, medical trainers, and non-military applications) and is easily adapted as the gaming industry evolves.
