Vortex Studio is a complete simulation platform. The features are delivered as a stack of independent modules and applications useful for building a complete simulator.

Vortex Studio Editor

Vortex Studio Player

Vortex Studio Director

Vortex Studio SDK

See Vortex Studio SDK and Python 3 Scripting

Vortex Studio Dynamics

See Mechanical Engineer Guide

Vortex Studio Graphics

See Artist Guide

Vortex Studio Modules

Audio

The Audio module’s primary purpose is to allow the position of audio sources in a three-dimensional space around a listener, producing reasonable spatialization of the sources for the audio system, be it stereo or surround configurations. 

• Provides efficient rendering of multichannel three-dimensional positional audio.

• Sources can be defined, dynamically positioned in 3D space and modified based on actions linked with the simulation events or entities.

• Listener can be positioned and attached to simulation assets.

• Dedicated audio extensions for generating engine or playback sound.

• Provides several audio effects such as Doppler effect and control of gain and pitch.

Distributed Simulation

This module distributes data computed from a master application to one or several slaves over a TCP/IP based network. Use case includes multi-channel visualization for monitors or projectors based installation, connection of external sources into the simulation (control systems, instructor station, etc.), multiplayer simulation, etc. 

• Network layer based on an abstract communication layer of which one implementation uses OpenDDS. Kinematic, repository and events information are serialized and dispatched between simulation machines.

• Accurate and reliable multichannel synchronization with unlimited number of rendering nodes.

• Support for UDP (User Datagram Protocol), a communications protocol for low-latency & loss tolerating connections between applications.

Input Devices

Vortex Studio provides several modules for reading data from standard external input devices such as keyboard, mouse or USB joystick. 

• Provide natively access to generic desktop control such as mouse and keyboard input devices.

• USB devices, such as mouse or gamepad, are hot-pluggable; restarting the Editor or Player is not required after adding a USB device to the computer.

• Generic USB Joystick device module provides access to up to 6 analog axes, 16 buttons with support for multiple devices concurrently.

• 3D Mouse let you navigate in space more easily with support for 3Dconnexion devices with 6 DOF mouse and button

Vortex Human

The Vortex Human add-on brings lifelike human characters to simulation. Characters look realistic, respond to simple high-level commands, and travel across the environment as controllable human (avatar) or scripted characters.

Vortex Human uses VT MAK DI-Guy’s technology for the rendering of the characters. 

Open

• Several character types available with hundreds of combinations of appearance and actions.

• Seamless transitions from one activity to the next, moving naturally like real people.

• Deterministic animations to avoid having different animation states over multiple channels.

• Collides with environment (terrain, mechanisms…).

• Take control of human characters with navigation and look-around capabilities.

Network Communication (UDP)

It is possible to connect Simulink models to a Vortex Studio simulation via the UDP protocol. 

During the modeling phase, both Vortex Studio Editor and Simulink applications can run side by side for fast development. Once validated, Simulink models can be connected via the UDP protocol extension and integrated into the Vortex Studio simulator for optimum performance. 

• Use a Vortex Studio simulation as a virtual test bed for prototyping in MATLAB-Simulink.

• Connect Vortex Studio mechanism parameters to Simulink model.

• Integrate and run Simulink model in Vortex Studio directly from the Editor.

• Supports the execution of multiple Simulink models in a simulation, and the connection of multiple mechanisms into a Simulink model.

• Other software supporting UDP can also exchange information during simulation through the same extension.

CAD Importer Add-On

The CAD Importer Add-On streamlines the creation of lightweight 3D models usable for real time simulation and visualization. The Add-on supports the import of industry standard CAD models and provides a set of tools to heal, de-feature and transform them. 

Open

• Import of the following format to ensure interoperability with CAD and CAE systems:

  • 3DXML (.3dxml), CATIA (.catpart, .catproduct, .cgr), Solidworks (.sldasm, .sldprt), STEP (.step), STL (binary and ascii), and VRML (.vrml, .wrl)

  • When available, additional data is imported, such as materials (colors) and assemblies

  • Several Geometry Features are available to heal, de-feature and transform 3D model:

• Automatic repairing tools (merge coincident edges, faces, vertices, stitch gaps …) o De-featuring capabilities: features recognition and simplification (holes, bump...) o Control nodes pivots transform (bake transform, create pivot transform from holes…)  Interactive Sorting and Re-Organization of the imported product structure. 

• Instance Management to save memory (several parts can share a common geometry).

Vortex Studio Integration with 3rd Party frameworks

Integrating Vortex Studio with Unity

Using Unity as Graphics Renderer

Integrating Vortex Studio with Unreal Engine

Operating System Support

Unless told otherwise, the features described in this documentation are available on the Windows operating systems.

For features supported on the Linux operating systems, see Vortex Studio on Linux.