Wave Issue 9602 7/3/96 Article 5-01

***Can DoD Help Hollywood?
By John Latta

The first meeting of the National Research Council panel "Modeling and
Simulation: Opportunities for Collaboration Between the Defense and
Entertainment Research Communities" was held on 6/26. Its charter is to
examine opportunities for greater collaboration between the defense
modeling and simulation community and the U.S. entertainment industry in
researching, developing, and deploying technologies to support modeling
and simulation activities. The steering committee includes members from:
Naval Post Graduate School, National Center for Supercomputer
Applications, MaK Technologies, Spectrum Holobyte, SGI, Alias/Wavefront,
U of VA, Virtual World Entertainment and an independent
producer/director.

Finding common ground between the DoD and entertainment industry will not
be easy. I was asked to present an overview of the markets and issues
which the board faces. Key to constructing alliances are common business
model elements, yet, the DoD, its contractors, the PC industry and the
movie industry have divergent business models. Many see technology as the
foundation for out-of-home entertainment success, yet, this is secondary
at best. It is the social environment which shapes the public acceptance
of an entertainment facility. Dave and Busters is a good example of an
adult center which combines food, arcade style play, simulated gambling
and pool into an environment liked by both men and women. It is an
environmental social psychology laboratory where the end result is a
profit and/or loss.

The total visual simulation market will be approximately $740m in 1996
with growth to $1.025b in 2000. These markets include the fast moving:
Ship and Truck simulators which is growing at approximately 20% and
Industrial Simulation at 40% growth. The total DoD visual simulation
market is estimated at $236m in 1996. Within this is the conventional
military simulators market, such as tank and aircraft simulators, and it
is flat or declining. The major growth is in the area of complex multi-
simulators which is a virtual distributed battlefield environment - the
direction of today's DIS (Distributed Interactive Simulation) within DoD.
In spite of the fact that the technology is impressive in the levels of
money spent, complexity, and scope of mission, this does not mean that
the creative community will embrace it. If history is any indication it
is just the opposite - standards designed by committee, which take years
to evolve and which have little in the way of a proprietary advantage are
against the grain of fast moving commercial markets.

The challenge of the board is to find the areas of common interest.

Jerry Sheehan, National Research Council (202)334-2605