3D Navigation and Behaviour for Air and Underwater Entities
FEATURES
Navigation that moves through space, not across it
Some entities aren't bound to the ground. Drones and subsurface vehicles move through open space, with room above, below and around them, and navigating that takes more than a map of the floor. Kythera gives these entities a full three-dimensional picture of where they can move, represented efficiently enough to cover both wide-open sky and tight, cluttered spaces in the same scenario. Because it works with navigable volume rather than a surface, one approach covers air and underwater alike. And as C++ middleware, it slots into the engine you already run rather than tying you to a single one.
01
Navigation in three dimensions
Some entities move through open space rather than across a surface. A drone or an underwater vehicle has to account for the space above, below and around it, not only the ground. Kythera's Flight Navigation gives these entities a full three-dimensional picture of where they can move, so airborne and other free-moving entities navigate their surroundings as well as ground units navigate terrain.
02
Open skies and cluttered spaces
Kythera represents navigable space with an adaptive 3D structure that varies its detail to match the environment. Open airspace is stored coarsely and cheaply, while cluttered areas such as a built-up zone, a hangar, or the gaps between structures are resolved in fine detail, down to the size of the entity itself. A single scenario can cover both wide-open sky and tight, obstacle-filled spaces without storing all of it in fine detail. The memory it uses depends on how complex the environment is, not how large it is.
03
Clearance-aware movement
Kythera's 3D navigation records how much clearance exists at any point in space, not just whether a point is clear. An entity can use that to judge whether it fits, keep a safe margin from obstacles, and move through confined spaces. Entities of different sizes can share the same environment, each one navigating according to its own dimensions.
04
Dynamic and extensible
The 3D navigable space can be regenerated as the world changes. Updates are streamed in over several frames instead of stalling the simulation, so the navigable volume keeps up with an evolving scenario. As with Kythera's ground navigation, the pipeline is extensible: you can add information such as cover, tactical markup, or your own custom data to the same structure. That lets 3D navigation support tactical airborne behaviour, not only basic movement between two points.
05
Air and underwater
Because the system works with navigable volume instead of a ground surface, the same capability covers airborne and underwater entities. If your work spans more than one of these domains, you can use one navigation approach across all of them instead of a separate solution for each.
WHY IT MATTERS
What this means for your simulation
Airborne entities that move convincingly through 3D space, on top of a single navigation foundation that extends beyond the ground into the air and underwater.
GET IN TOUCH
Talk to us about your simulation needs
Interested in using our tools? We'd love to hear from you.
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For more general enquiries, you can email us on contact@intelligentartefacts.com.