The Oasis platform is host to over 500 individual Sites, each of which unique from the last. You might even have had boots on the ground in some of our showcase Sites (our publicly viewable, read-only, cream-of-the-crop Sites), but, understandably, not every single one of our Sites reaches that quality. In fact, internally, we've had very strict outlines for what we call a Site's 'Levels of Detail' for quite some time, and we've recently decided to outline these standards for the sake of clarity and transparency - hence this article!
Some of you may be familiar with the term 'Levels of Detail' already. In Unreal Engine, for example, it's used to describe how an object may appear very high-resolution (both in geometry and texture scale) whilst you're closer to it, and as you move away, this same object is made lower-resolution (hopefully seamlessly) to help reallocate some performance budget to other objects that remain close to you, whilst maintaining a recognisable appearance at a distance.
In Oasis, we use 'Levels of Detail' to describe the content that a Site includes, and we describe it using the term 'Terrain Quality'. A site's TQ value (from TQ1 to TQ5) increases alongside its quality, for example:
It might be easier for us to convey this information in a table. Bear with us!
| Terrain Quality | Key Points | Cost (GBP) |
|---|---|---|
| TQ1 |
|
TBC |
| TQ2 |
|
TBC |
| TQ3 |
|
TBC |
| TQ4 |
|
TBC |
| TQ5 |
|
TBC |
| Supplementary Items | ||
| Item | Description | Cost |
| 360° Photogrammetry | Positionable 360° images in-application, to provide a real-time comparison between the model and real-life. | TBC |
| LIDAR Scan | A 3D Laser scan of the site, made appropriate for use with Oasis. A LIDAR Scan is a requirement for a High-Res Building. | TBC |
| Ongoing Annual Maintenance | A yearly, per-site scaling cost to ensure that a maintained site and all pertinent data is kept up-to-date with what dhp11 stores. This includes ensuring any and all terrain data is recent, updating existing and bringing in new survey data, as well as maintaining compatibility with the evolving UE4 development environment. | TBC |
Hopefully, that table helped. Below, we've gone into a little detail on each of our TQ's, and provided images to help us describe them.
Terrain Quality 1 is the lowest level-of-detail Site that we offer, but it's still an identifiable Site. One of the images above will show our model of the UK - something to note about that is that our Sites use region-based terrain. This means that the whole world uses low-resolution terrain, which gives some idea of shapes and landmasses, but is less accurate to help save on performance costs. The region, in this example, the UK, uses much higher-resolution terrain - not our highest, but getting there. You can see this on the image with how much more detailed the UK is compared to the coast of France, for example.
Because TQ1 terrain isn't our most accurate, we can get Sites using this Level of Detail out to customers fairly quickly - that isn't to say, though, that these sites are unidentifable. In the image looking out to the horizon, you can see some elevation changes!
Additionally, because they're still fully-functional Sites, TQ1 Sites can still have Components placed on them. Even without road networks and buildings, a site can still be built up using Oasis' intuitive design framework.
As you can see above, our TQ2 sites begin to use OpenStreetMap data to build up a network of highways, footpaths, and more - this contextual data can help a Site designer to very quickly identify the Site's location in-Level, and begin to build up the site as you'd expect to see it in real-life.
Even without Buildings, Components can be placed in their right locations either manually or automatically, by a third-party application such as Coolfire, via the Oasis API.
With TQ3, we being to bring in contextual buildings using OpenStreetMap as our data source. The open-source nature of OSM means that the buildings may not be 100% accurate, but they're invaluable nonetheless.
Even with the basic geometry provided by the OSM buildings, a Site can still be built up - in one of the images, we've placed one of Oasis' prebuilt Collections of high-detail Components on the OSM rooftop of the Site in question, and even this preliminary pass helps to add an extraordinary amount of context and guidance.
With a TQ4 site, the terrain becomes a 'Tile' - fully customisable and catered to your needs. A Tile allows the customer to bring in their own data, such as 360° photogrammetry and LIDAR data, seen above.
With the help of survey data, Components can be placed more accurately, allowing the user to build up a site using Oasis' high-detail models to be more true to life. Additionally, TQ4 sites allow users to edit the Tile's buildings, even going so far as to potentially remove whole structures and rebuild them from scratch, using Component-based meshes.
Once a site survey has been conducted, and a LIDAR scan created, a Site can have what we call a Hi-Res Building made. Hi-Res Buildings are millimeter-accurate, and are a lifelike twin of the real building, replicated in 3D. Hi-Res Buildings allow users to, in combination with the data included in every TQ before TQ5, hand-craft a realistic, life-accurate telecoms site.
Even minor details such as grass covering and solar panels on a rooftop are modelled - Hi-Res Buildings are unparalled in their accuracy and value to a Site.
© dhp11 Ltd. 2022
