Here is a quick beginning of the year update on our 2017 cyberspace situational awareness (CSA) research projects (2016 End Of Year Update):
(1) Completed initial proof of concept using the Unity 3D gaming engine for 3D visualization; including optimizing code and performance for the visualization of over 100,000 intrusion detection events. Expectations exceeded and POC was a success.
(2) Based on the success of (1) above, suspended all Javascript-based development including D3.js and netjsongraph.js development, indefinitely.
(3) 3D performance optimization continues, which generally means performing most graph processing and cyber object enrichment tasks in intermediate servers prior to loading in the visualization engine and optimizing the game engine visualization loop for millions of nodes and edges.
(4) Files representing cyber-objects and cyber-situations currently are in both XML (modified GraphML) and JSON formats. Considering moving all XML formats to JSON; but this is not a high priority at this time.
(5) Continue to evaluate various graph layout techniques and force-directed graph implementations both in the back-end (server-side) and visualization (client-side) engine.
(6) Initializing plans to add VR hardware and start VR coding; but waiting “a bit” hoping for the next release of the HTC Vive sooner than later.
(7) Initializing plans to add more complex graph processing capabilities including visualizing graph changes over time; distributed graph processing, networked gaming engines and more.
(8) Looking at ways to incorporate AI and machine learning into the visualization engine. To date, the implementation is all based on experts systems procedural and object programming, not using AI at this time.
That’s it for now ….
