STISIM Drive - Run Option

A very important rule that you should adhere to involves turning off any screen saver that may be active on your system. We will be the first to admit that screen savers are cool and can be down right funny and a real motivational enhancer as your dreary day plods along. However, they do not go well with real-time applications such as driving simulators. If you are in the middle of a simulation run the last thing you want to have happen is for the simulator to freeze while your screen saver activates. Because most good screen savers load images and sounds, this causes the roadway display to stop until the screen saver has finished and if multiple images are loaded over time, this will be a reoccurring event. Therefore, for the best results, we recommend that you disable all screen savers before starting a simulation run. In case you forget, STISIM Drive tries to disable screen savers by itself (and then re-enable them at the end of the run), but this does not always work especially with older screen savers. In addition, if STISIM Drive disables your screen saver and for some reason the program hangs, your screen saver will not be re-enabled.

After setting your systems configuration and designing the scenario that you will be running, all that is left to do is actually run the simulation. This is accomplished by first clicking on the Run option in STISIM Drive's main menu bar. When you click on the Run option, the following menu will be displayed:

As you can tell by looking at the menu, the Run option actually has three choices. The first begins the simulation process, the second allows you to enter driver information, and the third allows you to view a summary of the data collected during the previous run.

Before we tackle the issue of actually running a simulation, you should know a little about the Driver Information option. If you would like to enter some specific information about a driver and have it cataloged within the STISIM Drive data file and the Results Summary, or have a set way of cataloging the data files that are being created, then you need to enter the information before you execute the Begin Simulation Run option. At the completion of the run, this information will be included as part of the data file and the summary.

Once you have specified your configuration, the project file, and any driver information you are ready to begin your simulation run. To start the simulation process, simply click on the Begin Simulation Run option from the Run menu. The simulation will not be ready quite yet, first the simulator has to process the configuration and scenario information before it will allow the actual simulation to start. To help keep you informed about the initialization process, a dialog window will be displayed in the center of the display screen. This dialog window will show a couple of update bars and displays various messages as the initialization progresses. The top progress bar shows the status of the current process that is taking place (the actual process is listed in the middle of the dialog box). The second progress bar displays the current memory usage of the computer system. With some complex scenarios it is possible to use all of the system's RAM memory. If this is the case, the simulator may run sluggishly and the performance will be terrible. The memory display shows percentage of total RAM memory that is being used as the system loads the various objects that are required in the roadway display scene. If the progress bar turns red, then you are coming close to saturating the system's memory and some additional steps may be required. You can either shorten the simulation run, reduce the complexity of the scenario, or install more memory. At the bottom of the dialog window there is a red abort button that can be used to abort the initialization process at any time. If you choose to abort the run, you will be returned to the STISIM Drive main window.

Because your data is the most important thing that the simulator generates, STISIM Drive will always check to see if the data file name that is specified currently exists and if it does it will prompt you with the following message box:

Hopefully this will prevent you from accidentally overwriting an existing data file with new data. If you want to overwrite the currently existing file, then simply click on the Yes button. On the other hand if you really wanted to save the data to a different file name, click on the No button, change the file name in the Output Data File Name text box and then try running the simulation again.

Once the simulator has fully initialized, you will able to start your simulation run. For users that have a wide field of view system or that are using an advanced dynamics system, there is a readout, similar to the following,  that will appear on the center display at the bottom of the screen towards the left hand edge:

This readout displays the current status of the left, right and dynamics computers (it may differ based on the simulator configuration that you have). When you first begin a simulation run, all of these readouts will display a red circle meaning that the systems are not yet ready to run. When the readout changes to green, this indicates that the system is currently ready to go. When all of the systems go green, the simulation is ready to begin. If for some reason one of the systems does not go green, then there is a problem between the center display and the system that would not start, this should be investigated. The program will display a message similar to the following when this occurs:

Generally it means that the system that is down was not started or that there was a problem with the network communication. Restarting the program will generally clear this problem. If a system does not start, you can not run the simulator. At this point you either need to correct the network problem or try to run using the single screen mode. If it is the dynamics component that will not start, then you will only be able to drive the simulator in the autopilot mode.

The information dialog box will display a message informing you that the simulation is ready to go. At the same time, the red abort button will change to a green start button. At this point your simulation run can begin using several different options. You may left click on the green start button, you may use the start button on the driving controls (horn button, check the hardware section for information on the horn), or you can simultaneously press the Alt and F2 keys. If at this point you decide to abort the run, you may do so by right clicking on the green start button, or by simultaneously pressing the Alt and F1 keys.

Once the simulation is running, the information window will change to something similar to the following:

This information window gives you some insight into what is going on during the simulation run and also allows you to make sure that you are getting inputs from the drivers controls. Most of the information on the screen should be self explanatory. However, the response time variable displays the currently active divided attention task or the most recent divided attention response time. The DA event state parameters shows whether or not the divided attention response controls are activated or not. If the value displayed is 1, then the controller is not activated, if the display is 0 then the controller is activated. The numbers shown represent the horn (far left), left turn signal (middle) and the right turn signal (far right). Maybe the most important parameter being displayed is the Current frame rate parameter. This displays the current frame rate that the simulator is running at. In general you want this value to remain the same throughout the entire run, but as the graphics processor is loaded up this number could drop. If it drops too low then the simulator's roadway display could become jerky. If this happens, you may want to simplify your scenario so that fewer graphics objects are displayed in the roadway scene. You should also note that the information screen only updates about once a second, so if you think there is a delay in the information you are receiving, you are correct.

During a simulation run, there are a group of keystrokes that give you additional functionality. The keys combinations and their functions are as follows:

Keystroke:	Action Taken:
Alt - F1	Ends the simulation run
Alt - G	Changes the gear from forward to reverse. Reverse can only be activated when the driver's vehicle is not moving. To make sure that the gear has changed, look at the current gear number listing in the run time information window. If the vehicle is in reverse, this value should be -1, otherwise it should be the current gear (1 for automatic transmissions).
Alt - M	Data marker for use with the BSAV event. This allows you to toggle a flag in the data blocks so that while you are observing the driver, if you see something that you would like to review the data on, you can mark it.
Alt - P	Allows you to pause the simulation run (for taking pictures, or pointing out things in the roadway scene). The red stop button will change to a yellow continue button and the display will freeze at its current frame. To restart the simulation at the point where it was paused, simply click on the yellow continue button, or simultaneously press the Alt and P keys again.
Alt - T	For systems using a video timer to synchronize the simulation data with video data, this toggles between the STISIM Drive elapsed time counter and the video time counter.
F1	Shifts the horizontal view of the roadway display scene to the left in 5 degree increments.
F2	Shifts the horizontal view of the roadway display scene to the right in 5 degree increments.
F3	Shifts the vertical view of the roadway display up in 5 degree increments.
F4	Shifts the vertical view of the roadway display down in 5 degree increments.
F9	Adjust the mirror to the left.
F10	Adjust the mirror to the right.
F11	Adjust the mirror up.
F12	Adjust the mirror down.
U or Up Cursor	In autopilot mode, allows you to increase the vehicle's velocity by 1 foot/second.
D or Down Cursor	In autopilot mode, allows you to decrease the vehicle's velocity by 1 foot/second.
L or Left Cursor	In autopilot mode, allows you to shift the vehicle's lateral position 1 foot to the left.
R or Right Cursor	In autopilot mode, allows you to shift the vehicle's lateral position 1 foot to the right.
1	In autopilot mode, allows you to respond to the horn divided attention symbol. Note: because the experimenter's display only updates about every second, the display may not show your keyboard response. To insure it is working with the keyboard you will have to look at the roadway display monitor.
2	In autopilot mode, allows you to respond to the left turn divided attention symbol. Note: because the experimenter's display only updates about every second, the display may not show your keyboard response. To insure it is working with the keyboard you will have to look at the roadway display monitor.
3	In autopilot mode, allows you to respond to the right turn divided attention symbol. Note: because the experimenter's display only updates about every second, the display may not show your keyboard response. To insure it is working with the keyboard you will have to look at the roadway display monitor.

The final option that is available from the Run menu (Results Summary) displays a summary of results from the previous run. This summary is just a thumb nail sketch of the actual data that is collected during the run and saved in the STISIM Drive data file. Until a simulation run has been conducted, this option will not be available, once a simulation run has been stopped, this option will become available.