Today at the Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation, and Education Conference (I/ITSEC), the world's largest military training and simulation event, CAE announced the launch of its new CAE Prodigy image generator (IG).

The CAE Prodigy IG leverages Epic Games’ Unreal Engine, a state-of-the-art gaming engine that delivers high-fidelity graphics, physics-based simulation, and the ability to support a thousand-fold increase in the number of entities in a virtual environment.

During I/ITSEC (www.iitsec.org), CAE (Booth #1734) will be demonstrating the new CAE Prodigy IG as part of the CAE e-Series MR Prodigy Visual System, a comprehensive visual solution combining the image generator, projectors and dome display into an integrated training system designed specifically for fighter and fast-jet training applications.

“CAE is continually investing in bringing digitally immersive training solutions to market that enable the creation of high-fidelity, ultra-realistic virtual worlds,” said Dan Gelston, Group President, Defense & Security, CAE. “Our new Prodigy image generator builds on CAE’s longstanding commitment to driving industry standards as well as our experience and expertise in leveraging technologies to meet the specific needs of our military customers for simulation-based training.”

The CAE Prodigy IG builds on the proven features of CAE’s existing family of image generators and includes full support for the Open Geospatial Consortium Common Database (OGC CDB). Some of the key features and capabilities of the new CAE Prodigy IG include:

• Unreal Engine generates extremely realistic virtual environments including increased support for high scene density, enhanced lighting and special effects;
• Scalable quantities of entities and lifeforms to realistically populate virtual environments;
• Support for artificial intelligence to deliver a thousand-fold increase in realistic scene content;
• Leverages commercial-off-the-shelf hardware and software in a smaller footprint, thus delivering more affordable total cost of ownership;
• Support for industry standards, including Windows 10, OpenGL, Open Flight, and OGC CDB;
• Compatible with up to 8K projectors and up to 120Hz operation;
• Cybersecure compliant to the highest standards

The new CAE Prodigy IG is compatible with existing CAE databases, thus giving customers the ability to upgrade and enhance realism without requiring completely new databases.

“With pinpoint accuracy crucial to success, the simulation industry presents technical challenges that we don’t see in other domains,” said Marc Petit, Vice President and General Manager, Unreal Engine, Epic Games. “Meeting these necessary demands has helped us to further innovate our technology and introduce new features to Unreal Engine that shatter the perception of what a game engine can accomplish. The Prodigy IG represents just the first branch in our relationship with CAE, and we look forward to many fruitful collaborations in the coming years.”