US Army tests TrackingPoint smart-rifle scopes

TrackingPoint weapons are equipped with a special scope featuring a head-up display

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The US Army is testing a "smart rifle" technology designed to improve the accuracy of shots.

A spokeswoman confirmed reports that its equipment testing specialists had acquired six TrackingPoint rifles as part of efforts to identify state-of-the-art kit.

The tech allows the user to place a virtual tag on a target seen through the weapon's scope.

If the trigger is pressed, it fires only if the gun is correctly lined up.

This prevents errors such as trigger jerk, range miscalculation and accidental firing from being a problem.

In addition, a Linux-based computer built into the scope can compensate for 16 calculated variables, including temperature, the expected spin drift of the bullet and the direction the wind is blowing.

A TrackingPoint weapon is supposed to refuse to fire until a red dot is lined up with a tagged target

"I can only train a soldier so much," Lt Col Shawn Lucas, of the army's Program Executive Office (PEO) soldier division,told Army Times.

"However, for a relatively small investment, I can make a significant increase in probability of hit and overall effectiveness by making an investment in advanced fire control."

But one independent observer said the technology would not turn every soldier into a sniper.

"This isn't a revolutionary technology, but essentially laser-designation 'tagging' adapted from common use in more complex weapons systems for use on small arms," said Peter Quentin, of the defence-focused Rusi think tank.

"It is not going to create 'super-snipers' because it still cannot do what is the truly smart aspect of their skills - a full assessment of weather and other conditions that will affect the flight of the bullet, and [which] therefore requires considerable calculation to determine adjustments to the aim.

"But while this does not deepen capabilities, it has the potential to broaden them, improving the accuracy of larger numbers of less specialist personnel by enabling the 'retagging' of a target rather than retaking of a shot."

Precision tactics

According to the Austin, Texas-based company TrackingPoint, the addition of its scope to a rifle delivers five times the first-shot success rate of traditional systems at distances of up to 1,200 yards (1.1km).

The scopes use a laser range finder to lock onto a moving target

Looking at Topology

Here I was checking the topology of the loom model Radiant Worlds gave us as an example, It comes across quite simple, using bevel on most of the edges and connecting with triangles. I found out later everything was much harder than I thought and had a long time struggling with the modelling, I eventually got to grip's with it thanks to my tutor George, who reminded me that edge loops were the best way of doing things for this model and that keeping ones in the middle and near the edges a hard edge would be made.

BLOWS MY MIND: Microsofts Hololens

Well you kind of have to watch the video to see how amazing it is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qym11JnFQBM

Norwegian army tests virtual-reality headset in tanks

 Wearing a virtual-reality headset is a new experience for soldiers

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The virtual-reality Oculus Rift headset has been put to a novel use by the Norwegian army - helping soldiers to drive tanks.

By mounting cameras on the outside of the tank, soldiers were able to create a 360-degree feed to the Oculus headset, worn by the driver.

The device - still just a prototype - is much cheaper than conventional military camera systems.

But the picture quality is not yet good enough for operational use.

The army began testing the headset in 2013 and in April of this year tried out the latest iteration of the hardware.

"It is a partial success," project leader Maj Ola Petter Odden told the BBC.

"The concept is sound, but the technology isn't quite there yet. The picture quality is good for 10-15m [30-50ft] - but after that it is difficult to distinguish details, for example whether an opponent is carrying a weapon."

The view from inside the tank

Now he plans to wait until next year for further tests.

"There will be better hardware and we can test it again then," he said.

I imagine that by now they are able to make this concept work fully functional, considering Microsoft have just released fully functional holographic glasses, see next post"

3 Types of non-manifold Geometry!

http://cgi.tutsplus.com/tutorials/cleaning-up-bad-geometry-using-mayas-cleanup-options--cg-21861
This website helped a bit above is just the intro, it had a lot of infomatoion about using the clean up tool and explained to me that there in fact three different types of non-manifold geometry. I know more about how to get rid of them, but am still unsure why they keep appearing.

My First Bake

I learnt a lot today about high poly modelling and baking things, George showed us lots of examples, and then we had a go at doing some. We started of small and used models George had already made beforehand, to practise the baking process using the x-normal program.

To bake you have to have one low poly and one high poly version, you should create the low poly in an attempt to keep the same silhouette as the high poly model. You then get these models to occupy the same space and bake by putting the obj's in x-normals. You should end up with a normal map that you can apply to your low poly, to give it the appearance of a high poly model, depending on how close you can get to it depends on how effective this can be. 

From as close as this you can easily see that the bake isn't to round but as its a nut your unlikely to ever see it that close, and it round look to different to the high poly at a distance. This process has changed how i think about creating models now.

I think I went and softened the edges on the top to get rid of the bad effect shown above.

Above normal map made to go on the low poly, made in x-nromals

HATE

Non-manifold Edges are the bane of my life! I have had so much trouble with this model because of them and other things I cant explain. I feel that it should have been so much easier, Ive spent the whole day on just trying to get the model correct and Im still not there. I really just want to move onto the painting part.
"Sigh!"