Digital Engineering Visualization Technologies and Techniques

Summary

This chapter discusses how dynamic data visualization is an integral part of Digital Engineering (DE) and can transform the interactions between stakeholders and engineers. SERC research has demonstrated how to computationally enable the visualization of digital threads for system analyses and design changes to help visualize how those changes flow to mission‐level capabilities and related mission performance measures. These visualizations include various types of dynamic dashboards that communicate design trade‐offs, allowing decision‐makers to better understand their options, and can help elicit requirements from end users, and validate the underlying simulations. The semantic DE environment is a useful way to manage these changes and can provide a backend for decision support dashboards and digital thread impact analyses. Another enabling technology for DE visualization is gaming engines, which provide an immersive environment for mission visualization. Simulation using gaming engines represent graphical concepts of operation (CONOPs), which provides another form of impact analysis by showing how systems react to design changes and can help in eliciting mission and system objectives and requirements from end users. When based on rigorous engineering models, these graphical CONOPs can help validate or calibrate simulation results and support digital engineering methods such as mission‐ and system‐level optimization.