Ian Mayo Documentation for Debrief NG August 2007 Should you wish to learn more about Debrief please contact one of the following:

Lt Cdr Andy Evans SM OA Maritime Warfare Centre Marlborough Building, HMS Collingwood Fareham HANTS UK PO14 1AS e-mail: smtac.oa@mwc.rn.mod.uk

Mr Ian A Mayo Debrief Project Manager PlanetMayo Ltd 34 Shearwater Avenue Fareham HANTS UK PO16 8YE e-mail: ian@planetmayo.com

2.1 1st July 2007 IM Polish final Debrief NG content 2.0 1st March 2006 IM Start transition to Debrief NG 1.7 10th July 2004 IM Include track-shifting 1.6 10th March 2003 IM Update to Debrief 2003 functionality 1.5 10th Nov 2002 IM Add ETOPO-2 data support 1.4 10th July 2002 IM D2002 post-beta revisions, including starting with higher memory allocation 1.3 7th May 2002 IM Update to reflect Debrief 2002 1.2 13th February 2002 IM Bought up to date with new features (per-fix colouring, cascade/tile, x-y plot tracking bar) 1.1 25th October 2001 IM Acknowledged Debrief users added, together with extended Welcome/History 1.0 8th October 2001 IM Initial version, following collation of existing HTML pages to DocBook format, together with full review by SMTAC OA. 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 Maritime Warfare Centre Ltd. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License". Welcome to the documentation for Debrief NG. Debrief has been produced by the Maritime Warfare Centre in Portsmouth UK, to support the analysis and reporting of maritime tactical exercises. In December 2000 the Maritime Warfare Centre decided to give Debrief an Open Source status, opening the application and its source code into the public domain. Debrief has been made Open Source Open Source to facilitate its wider use, encouraging adoption of standard file formats, presentation and practices between analysis agencies. Debrief provides the following features: 2-Dimensional (top-down) view of vessel tracks Ability for user to step-through exercise serials Full formatting of data presented on screen Palette of tactical, vector map and chart-related features for insertion onto plot Export of plot images for insertion into word processor X-Y plotting of relationships between tracks 3-Dimensional view of tracks using height/depth data Gridded database of bathymetry/elevation Display of time-stamped text and sensor data 2006 has seen a change in direction for the delivery of Debrief. Instead of being a standalone application build from scratch (albeit with a couple of third-party components), Debrief NG has been rehosted into an existing framework; Eclipse. Adoption of Eclipse has bought the following benefits:Functionally rich user interfaceEclipse has provided a wealth of trees, tables and slider controls to make your analysis job easier. You are now able to drag & drop any window anywhere on the screen. Persistent window layout. Your modified window layout is remembered when you re-open Debrief NG. Online updating. If you're connected to a suitable network (MWC or the Internet) Eclipse is able to download & install it's own updates. Agencies with large numbers of Eclipse users can provide their own internal update site for Eclipse installations to download updates from.Note, Extensive guidance. Since Debrief sits "on top" of Eclipse, the broad spectrum of Eclipse online & printed guidance is available. You rely less on Debrief-specific guidance to resolve your problems. Don't worry, all of the guidance is presented together and covered by a single search engine. Modular infrastructure. It is now easier to create Debrief plug-ins, and applications based on Debrief. Developers no longer have to learn the full depth and breadth of Debrief prior to adding new features. They just need to learn about the interfaces presented by Debrief, and how the Eclipse infrastructure works. Eclipse development is documented online and in many off-the-shelf books, and it has a strong support community It is now easy to edit multiple items at once. As you select them on the layer manager, their common properties are shown in the properties window. Then just edit away... All of the user interface have received a refresh. The layer manager includes contextual icons giving an extra indication of what's in each layer.

The time-controller has also received some TLC, it is now tidier, more capable, and will act as a firm foundation for more time-related operations in the future.

You can now bookmark significant events within an exercise. The list of bookmarks across all of your Debrief plots are managed from the Bookmarks dialog, and generated from the drop-down menu of the improved Time Controller.

Debrief was originally History produced in 1995 in the Maritime Warfare Centre to act as a desktop viewer for results produced by the MWC's ASSET ASSET submarine simulator. In use it quickly became apparent that real exercise data could also be viewed in the application removing the requirement for clerical staff to produce paper plots for use in analysis. The initial version of Debrief was a 16-bit MS Windows C++ application. Debrief was updated in late 1996 to 32 bits, in order to exploit the richer user interface components available for 32 bit Windows applications. It was at this stage that the application was demonstrated and subsequently issued under license to COMSUBDEVRON 12 CSDS 12 COMSUBDEVRON 12 of the US Navy. In 1999 development of an updated version of Debrief, Debrief 2000 was started. Over the previous four years a number of fresh requirements had arisen, requirements which could not be economically met using the existing architecture. Accordingly development of the Debrief 2000 application started from a fresh-whiteboard, adopting a modern modular approach to allow incremental implementation and insertion of future modules as they were required. The rapid maturity experienced by Java together with the availability of cheaply available development environments, rich application libraries (serialisation, Java3D and XML in particular) and its platform independence made Java the natural choice for the application. During 2000 Debrief gained wider use within the Maritime Warfare Centre, being used for more varied types of submarine exercise analysis together with analysis in surface-related warfare areas. In Summer 2000 the Maritime Warfare Centre committed to switching the Debrief application to Open Source Open Source status. The adoption of the Open Source licensing model affects MWC in a number of ways: Organisations that are currently using Debrief will have full access to the source code of Debrief, allowing them to identify and correct bugs (provided they have sufficiently trained staff). The licensing is such that these modifications can be again made public through the re-insertion into the central, online "code base". Organisations that are not currently using Debrief also have full access to the application and its source code. Since the application and its supporting documentation clearly describe its origins in MWC this will spread the name of the organisation together with enforcing its reputation as a centre of maritime tactical analysis. Any organisation using Debrief that identifies a bug/algorithmic problem is able to independently correct the problem and submit the corrected code back into the central "code base". In time, this will greatly increase the accuracy and reliability of the application. MWC may then freely utilise these improvements, only incurring the administrative overhead of "checking-in" code modified by third party organisations. The free, open source status of the application makes it easier for third party, commercial organisations to bid for development contracts to maintain or extend Debrief. This wider availability will only bring economic advantages to MWC and fellow organisations. The wider national/international use of Debrief will also lead to easier exchange of exercise data between nations (through common file formats) and potentially offer an increase in efficiency and the general quality of naval exercise analysis At the end of 2000, Ian Mayo, the developer and project manager of Debrief, left full-time employment at the Maritime Warfare Centre to setup his own software development consultancy, PlanetMayo PlanetMayo Ltd. A competitive open tender process was conducted during late 2001 to supply the Maritime Warfare Centre with Debrief support. The contract was won by PlanetMayo, who grouped up the implementation of the MWC's fresh requirements in a major update to Debrief, titled Debrief 2001. This update bought new, large areas of functionality to Debrief including vectored chart data, display of narrative text, and display of sensor-data. Debrief development continued in 2002, with the update to Debrief 2002, which bought greatly improved 3-d plotting facilities and a number of incremental improvements to other areas of functionality. The year 2002 also saw the first conference paper extolling the virtues of Debrief and the Open Source principles behind it, at UDT Undersea Defence Technology 2002 in La Spetzia, Italy. The paper itself is available for viewing at the: Debrief web site. Another significant step forward for Debrief in 2002 was the contribution from NUWC NUWC of an algorithm and code suitable for shifting tracks. NUWC developed a set of experimental classes used to perform track-shifting. The algorithms used in these classes were taken and modified to complement the Debrief look and feel, and to provide greater usability resulting in the track-shifting editor included in Debrief 2002. Through 2003-2007 PlanetMayo has continued to provide MWC with contracted support for Debrief. This support has included user guidance, bug fixes and addition of new features. Additionally this support contract was used to deliver Debrief 2003; (including provision of a bathymetric bottom in 3-d views, presentation of TMA data, and improved time-variable graphs), and the fundamental rebuild of Debrief into Debrief NG (providing a modular architecture ready to seamlessly accommodate ad-hoc analysis tools). Whilst Debrief was originally developed for use within the Maritime Warfare Centre, the switch to Open Source licensing has led to its adoption by the following organisations and companies: Debrief project sponsor.

Lt Cdr Andy Evans RN Maritime Warfare Centre Marlborough Building, HMS Collingwood Fareham, HANTS PO14 1AS United Kingdom smtac.oa@mwc.rn.mod.uk

Debrief project manager.

Mr Ian Mayo Marlborough Building, HMS Collingwood Fareham, HANTS PO14 1AS United Kingdom ian@planetmayo.com

COMSUBDEVRON 12

Submarine Development Squadron Twelve Naval Submarine Base New London Groton, CT, 06349-5200 USA

Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC)

Roger Howlett Code 2212 Combat Systems ICE Development Team Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC) 1176 Howell St Bldg 1171 CSTL Laboratory Newport, Rhode Island, USA HowletRW@npt.nuwc.navy.mil

Joe Sileo COMSUBPAC Tactical Analysis Group (N7231) Commander Submarine Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet 1430 Morton St, Bldg 619 Pearl Harbor HI 96860-4664

Jay Spry COMSEVENTHFLT/COMSUBGRU 7

If your organisation or company uses Debrief and wishes to be included as an acknowledged user please forward your details to the Debrief Project Manager as recorded above. This document uses the following conventions Descriptions Appearance Warnings Warnings. Hint Hint. Notes Note. Information requiring special attention Warning. File Names file.extension Label of a screen item View Toolbar On-screen button Auto Generate Name of an applications Internet Explorer Emphasized text word An entry in the glossary (click to view) Plot Source Example paraBeginning and end of paragraph para This tutorial will lead you through Debrief right from the installation through to more advanced topics such as creating custom sets of layers for annotation fresh plots. A number of project Debrief Obtaining Debrief support activities (news, feature-requests, bug-reports) for Debrief are conducted online, at a web-site known as SourceForge. SourceForge is also used to store the newest versions of Debrief, ready for download. The home page for Debrief on SourceForge is at http://sourceforge.net/projects/debrief. From this home you can read the latest news on Debrief, request new features, report bugs, and download the most recent version. To obtain the latest version, examine the table titled "Latest File Releases", and click on the Download link next to Debrief-Installation-Set. Then click on install.exe for a windows version of Debrief, or install.bin for a unix version. If you already have DebriefNG installed, but just want to install an update, look at the files listed in the Debrief-Updates section of the Latest File Releases. For each new release of Debrief, the significant files are located individually in the Latest File Releases. If you do not wish to download the full Debrief installation, just download these individual files and replace your existing copies with these. It is important to download and use all of the files provided to ensure compatibility. Debrief is also available in source and binary distributions from the SourceForge web-site, in the Debrief-Developer package. These distributions are suited to the software developer wishing to learn more about the structure of Debrief or wishing to extend its functionality. Once either of these distributions are downloaded, unzip them and examine the readme.txt file in the top level directory. If you get stuck with Debrief, the following sources of information are available:The Debrief NG User guide is a useful reference for determining where to find something, the overall capabilities of the tool, and assorted reference guidance. It's presented online as part of Debrief NG help within a help browser (accessed via Help Contents on the Help menu. A series of online cheat sheets is distributed with Debrief. These sheets guide the user through a series of complex tasks to achieve an overall goals such as: loading data into Debrief or analysing narrative data. The cheat sheets are accesssed by selecting Debrief Cheat Sheets from the Help menu in Debrief NG. Debrief NG's welcome page provides a high level overview of Debrief, and guides the user to further sources of information, tutorials (cheat sheets), and samples. If you are unable to download Debrief from the Internet, please contact the Project Manager, and a copy of Debrief on CD-ROM will be forwarded to you. If you already have Debrief NG installed on your machine you should remove it using the Add/Remove Programs button from the Settings button on the Windows Start menu. Once you have downloaded Debrief NG, double-click on install.exe and follow the steps provided. You are first met with the welcome screen:

Welcome view of the installer

Click on the Next button to move forward through the screens. The first choice you are offered is the destination of the Debrief files. Unless you have any strong objection this default destination is normally acceptable.

Next you will see the Pre-Installation Summary dialog which will allow you to step backwards to review installation settings prior to conducting the install.

After this you will see Debrief being installed onto your machine

Finally you will be greeted with the Installation Complete dialog informing you that everything went ok.

It's now time to start Debrief Open the application using the shortcut placed in the Programs section of your Start menu. The application may take a couple of seconds to load, but don't worry about the speed; once the windows are open Debrief runs quite quickly. If you are viewing this tutorial online, arrange this window and the Debrief window so that both are visible (although you may need to let them overlap if you have limited screen space).

When opened for the very first time Debrief shows its Welcome page. This page (shown above) includes a series of links to high-level introductory information. The Overview page contains guidance for new-adopters of Debrief, whereas the Tutorials page contains leads users through more specific tasks through the use of cheat-sheets - small pages breaking a task down into a series of tasks. The buttons at the top-left of each page navigate you around the welcome guidance. On the Tutorials page one cheat-sheet in particular will help new Debrief-adopters:Getting started with Debrief NGWalking you through loading your first data into Debrief Starting any of the cheat-sheets will shrink the Welcome guidance to a smaller pane exposing the rest of Debrief NG as shown in the following diagram.

The Debrief user-interface follows the Workbench convention, whereby a users edits individual files in an Editor assisted by a series of supporting information panes called Views. The specific arrangement of editors and views offered by Default is called a Perspective, in this instance the Tactical Analysis perspective. The Tactical Analysis perspective arranges the views into sets of grouped tabs, though views can be dragged to any other location on the workbench, or floated above the workbench. Views frequently have their own toolbar and drop-down menu providing actions related to that particular task. Once selected, views are closed by clicking on the white diagonally oriented cross. To re-open a view, or open a fresh view select Show View from the Window menu. A list of Debrief-related views will be shown. Other views can be selected from the Other... menu item Fundamentally, the Debrief user interface (generically termed the Workbench) is constructed from a plot editor, surrounded by a series of support panes (called views), both underpinned by a main menu and a series of toolbars. These elements are described further below.

Any number of editors can be open at once, but only one can be active at a time. The main menu bar and toolbar for Debrief contain operations that are applicable to the active editor. Initially the active editor will always be the Debrief plot, but the extensibility of Debrief NG means other types of editor can be implemented. Tabs at the top of the editor area indicate the names of files that are currently open for editing (Sample.xml in the previous screenshot). An asterisk (*) indicates that an editor has unsaved changes. By default, editors are stacked in the editor area, but you can choose to tile them (by dragging the tabbed plot-name) in order to view source files simultaneously. Views support editors and provide alternative presentations as well as ways to navigate the information in your Workbench. For example, the Navigator displays projects and other resources that you are working with, and the Layer Manager shows a list of selectable items within the current plot. Views also have their own drop-down menus. To open the menu for a view, click the icon at the right end of the view's title bar. Some views also have their own toolbars. The actions represented by buttons on view toolbars only affect the items within that view. A view might appear by itself, or stacked with other views in a tabbed notebook. You can change the layout of a perspective by opening and closing views and by docking them in different positions in the Workbench window. We've attempted to provide a logical arrangement of Debrief views, but feel free to experiment. Debrief will remember your settings, but you can return to the defaults at any point by selecting Reset Perspective from the Window menu. There are four kinds of toolbars in Debrief. The main toolbar, sometimes called the Workbench toolbar, is displayed at the top of the Workbench window directly beneath the menu bar. Items in the toolbar might be enabled or disabled based on the state of either the active view or editor. Sections of the main toolbar can be rearranged using the mouse. There are also individual view toolbars, which appear in the title bar of a view. Actions in a view's toolbar apply only to the view in which they appear. Some view toolbars include a Menu button, shown as an inverted triangle, that contain actions for that view. Whilst Debrief doesn't currently make use of Perspectives, a third type of toolbar is the perspective switcher. The perspective switcher allows quick access to perspectives that are currently open. It also has a button that can open new perspectives. The perspective switcher is normally located in the top-right, next to the main toolbar. However, it is also possible to position it below the main toolbar ("top-left"), or to position it vertically on the left-hand side of the workbench ("left"). The name of the perspectives is shown by default, but it is possible to hide the text and show only the icons. To reposition the perspective or hide the text, right-click on it and choose the appropriate item from the context menu. When Debrief contains modules for Track Reconstruction it would be understandable for a Track Reconstruction perspective to provide a suitably tailored set of views. Finally, the fast view bar is a toolbar that contains icons representing the current set of fast views. A fast view is a shortcut to a view that is frequently used - generated by right-clicking in a view's title bar. The fast view bar appears in the bottom left corner of the workbench by default. However, it is possible to position it on the left or right as well. In all cases, you can find out what toolbar buttons do by moving your mouse pointer over the button and reading the tooltip that opens. . Each Workbench window contains one or more perspectives. A perspective defines the initial set and layout of views in the Workbench window. Within the window, each perspective shares the same set of editors. Each perspective provides a set of functionality aimed at accomplishing a specific type of task or works with specific types of resources. For example, the Tactical Analysis perspective combines views that you would commonly use while editing analysing tactical exercises. Perspectives control what appears in certain menus and toolbars. They define visible action sets, which you can change to customize a perspective. You can save a perspective that you build in this manner, making your own custom perspective that you can open again later. You can use the General > Perspectives preference page to open perspectives in the same window or in a new window. See the Debrief Cheat-Sheet for guidance in creating a new Debrief plot, or loading an existing plot. Debrief reads text files using a format named the Replay Introduction Replay file format ( Replay was an application used in Debrief-style tasks in Royal Navy analysis in past years). Replay files are ASCII-files containing vessel position data in a flat-file format similar to that below: 951212 050000.000 CARPET @C 12 11 10.63 N 11 41 52.37 W 269.7 2.0 0 951212 050100.000 CARPET @C 12 11 10.58 N 11 42 2.98 W 269.7 2.0 0 ;NARRATIVE: 951212 095700.000 TOMATO SUSPECTED DETECTION OF RED 951212 050200.000 CARPET @C 12 11 10.51 N 11 42 14.81 W 269.9 2.0 0 951212 050300.000 CARPET @C 12 11 10.51 N 11 42 27.27 W 268.7 2.0 0 951212 050400.000 CARPET @C 12 11 10.28 N 11 42 40.33 W 270.6 2.0 0 Since Autumn 2004 multi-word track names can now be read in if they are surrounded by quotation marks. This data has a single vessel location per-line, with white-space separated columns containing this data: Date (year, month, day) Time (hours, minutes, seconds, decimal seconds)) Vessel Name (single-word)) Formatting to apply (see the maintainer documentation for details of this, but experiment with the second character to change the default colour of the track).) Latitude (deg, min, sec, hemisphere)) Longitude (deg, min, sec, hemisphere)) Course (degrees)) Speed (knots)) Depth (m)) Note the third line, which contains a narrative entry. This entry represents one of a group of types of data called Annotation Entries. These entries allow inclusion of data other than vessel locations, and can be interspersed with positional data throughout the file. Multiple vessel tracks can be contained sequentially in a single Replay file. For more detail regarding this file format, including how to represent annotations which are only visible for a defined time period, together with lines, ellipses and rectangles, examine the maintainers section of the this document. See the cheat-sheet covering importing existing data into Debrief. When data is imported, Debrief applies default values to the time labels for positions. The first point in a track, together with the first point every day includes the day, otherwise just hours and minutes are displayed. Of course though, you haven't learnt how to show the labels, so that's still to follow - but remember, when you switch on the labels for a track, it was at the import stage that the default labels were set. Once data is loaded into Debrief, there are a number of ways of controlling the view of the track data using the buttons on the View toolbar.

For most of Debrief's operations (such as adding drawing features) it needs to have an area to look at. When re-opening an existing plot file, or importing data, Debrief can determine the area covered by the plot. However, when starting a new, blank session, Debrief does not know what area to cover. In this circumstance Debrief sets the origin to its own origin, at Fort Blockhouse, HMS Dolphin, Portsmouth, United Kingdom - the plot will be centred approximately on 50 degrees 49 minutes North, 1 degree 19 minutes West. The first five buttons represent modes of use and are selectable individually, with only one selected at a time. When one does get clicked, it remains depressed, popping up the button previously in use. Drag Component This setting lets you drag a single point within a large feature. For example, after switching to Drag Component mode you can drag the corners of a rectangle or a single point within a vessel track. Drag Whole Feature This setting lets you drag a complete feature. In Drag Whole Feature mode you can drag a rectangle around the plot, or move a complete vessel track. Pan The Pan control lets you move your current viewpoint. Click on the Pan button, and then drag the mouse around the plot -- you will see the view change as you do it. Range Bearing Whilst the Range and Bearing control does not allow you to move around the view, it does merit discussion at this point. Select the Range and Bearing control, then drag the mouse to measure the range and bearing between two points - you will see the calculated results displayed at the mid-point of the connecting, as shown below. The default units are yards, but different units may be selected from the CMAP section of the properties shown in the Window/Preferences dialog. Zoom in You are in the Zoom In mode by default. So, click and drag the mouse across the area where the two tracks are located near the centre of the plot. When you release the mouse button you will see a zoomed in view of the data. In addition to the mouse mode buttons described above, the middle mouse button may be used to navigate irrespective of the current mouse mode. Hold the middle mouse button down and drag the cursor to pan around the plot, or hold down the CTRL key and roll your mouse backwards and forwards to zoom in and out of the plot The next set of buttons do not involve mouse interaction with the plot, they just require mouse clicks Zoom out If you now click on the Zoom out button, you will "zoom out" of the plot (surprise, surprise). This button works well in conjunction with the Zoom in button, since this does not take the mouse out of "zoom in" mode -- therefore you can zoom in on areas, click zoom out a couple of times, then zoom in again, all with the minimum of mouse clicks. The wheel-mouse may also be used to zoom out as described above in Fit to Window Whilst the meaning of the icon on this button is not all that clear (it's meant to be a combination of zoom in, zoom out, and all of the pan/move buttons), it fits the view to display all of the currently visible data. Note that there may be data on the plot which is not visible (hidden layers), the area covered by the hidden items of information is not included in the "Fit to window" operation. Additionally this phenomenon relates to the data once you have pressed "Filter to time period" from the Time Controller - the plot is resized to fit the data contained in the indicated time period (yes, you'll learn about this later in ). Refresh View This button refreshes the current view. Refreshing is occasionally required when switching between display modes The Chart Overview provides an overview of the full exercise area. This view is opened from the Window/Show View... drop down list. Using it is quite simple. Drag a region in the overview and the current plot will quickly zoom to show that area. A highlight rectangle shows the current plot view. Once you've zoomed in a little you can double-click in the overview to recenter the main plot on that point.

Debrief contains an unending list of undo-able operations, only cleared when the current session is closed. Most changes to the Debrief plot are undo-able - whether they be creating a new feature, changing an attribute of a feature (such as color), or changing the current perspective. If something doesn't undo, then the changes are we've missed it. Please report the oversight using the procedure in and we'll correct it. The background color for the Debrief plot can be Formatting Plot (background color) changed to suit different projection/printing mediums, or to suit the analysts personal choice. Additionally, the width at which lines of tactical objects are drawn can also be changed. Either of these options are accessed by double-clicking on the plot background. A properties panel will appear, use the drop-down list to change the background colour, or move the slider to change the line width itself. Before you are able to analyse or export plots from your data you need to know how to format Formatting Track data what you see to improve its legibility. Learn more about formatting tracks in the Editing your data cheat-sheet. Apologies in advance to the British users of Debrief for the American-spelling of colour. The software environment within which Debrief is developed is American, and in this case superimposing the UK spelling upon it is not a battle worth fighting.

Track editing is performed on the Properties Window, and is initiated by selecting the track either from the plot or the Layer Manager, as described in the Editing your data cheat-sheet. In addition to switching the symbols and labels on and off for individual positions, you can instruct Debrief to show symbols or labels at one of a series of frequencies - allowing you to quickly add 15 minute symbols and hourly time labels to a track. The timings of the particular positions that get highlighted do not have their origin at the start of the track - but from 0000 hrs - thus the 15 minute positions will be marked for 00, 15, 30, 45 minutes past the hour. The track-shifting Track Shifting Reconstruction Track Shifting function has been incorporated to allow users to move a track and its associated sensor data. The principle requirement for this functionality is to enable the user to move the track to a specific geographic reference point (i.e. GPS fix) or to lock the relative position of one track to another using sensor data. This positioning relative to another track is sometimes termed plot-lock Reconstruction Plot-lock or tie-point Reconstruction Tie-point . The Track-shifting implementation was originally provided by Mr David Gong at NUWC. Debrief NG provides two modes of track shifting - moving individual points in a track to correct a potentially erroneous data point, or moving whole tracks to overcome navigational system inaccuracies - such as during a plot-lock or tie-in. See the two modes above in . A Stacked Dots view is used to show bearing-errors when the track-shift is being conducted to line up one or two sets of sensor data. For each sensor bearing on a track, Debrief identifies the point on the opposing track nearest to that time. Each time the track is shifted (dragged) Debrief calculates the error between the sensor bearing and the current measured bearing, showing these in a plot (bearing error against time). Debrief displays a symbol for each visible sensor data, with the symbol being plotted the same colour as the sensor data. When track-shifting a long exercise serial, the time-variable plot may become difficult to use due to the y-axis always auto-scaling to accommodate all available data. Overcome this by instruction Debrief to filter-to-time-period (from the time controller, ) for the plot-lock period, thus viewing a much smaller data-set in the time-variable plot. Additionally, you can zoom in on a particular area (by dragging an area downward and to the right) of the time-variable plot for detailed analysis, dragging the mouse up and to the left to clear the zoom.

For the track-shifting to work, your data must be configured as follows:You must have a Debrief plot open (duh) You must have a vessel track as the primary track () on the Tote (not an annotation or other time-related object) You must have a secondary track on the Tote, but only one secondary track. This must also be a vehicle track. The primary track must have sensor data. Debrief also allows you to add items to the plot. These items are contained in two menus; Chart Features and Drawing. In Debrief, hover the mouse over them to see what type of item they create.

It is important to note that each time you click on an item from the toolbar, a new instance of it is created, it does not re-open an existing item. The Scale button provides a scale, indicating Scale to the viewer the current area of coverage of the plot. Once created the scale values can be set automatically or manually, as described below: Auto Mode In auto-mode Debrief assesses the current screen size and area of data covered, and attempts to set the most appropriate range of values and step size for the scale. A good working practice is to switch to auto-mode to allow Debrief to estimate the optimal values, then switch out of auto-mode to fine-tune the ScaleMax and ScaleStep values provided. Color The colour used to draw the scale. Location The corner of the plot where the scale is placed. ScaleMax The maximum value of the scale (in yards) ScaleStep The size of the steps used to break up the scale (again in yards) Visible You can clear the visibility flag to temporarily hide a scale, allowing you to switch between scales, for example. Units Use this list to select the units displayed in the scale

Next, try with a new grid: Auto Mode In auto-mode Debrief assesses the current screen size and area of data covered, and attempts to set the most appropriate range of values and step size for the scale. A good working practice is to switch to auto-mode to allow Debrief to estimate the optimal values, then switch out of auto-mode to fine-tune the ScaleMax and ScaleStep values provided. Color The colour used to draw the scale. Delta The interval between plotted lines PlotLabels Whether to label the grid. See tip below for details regarding how the labels are formatted Visible Whether you can hide the grid, of course. Two methods are used to produce grid lines: Lat/Long Grid. Where angular delta units are selected (degrees, minutes), vertical and horizontal grid lines are calculated relative to the latitude of the plot (thus a 1 degree grid requested at 60 degrees North will have grid lines of 60nm separation in latitude, but with lines of longitude at 30nm separation). Square Grid. Where distance related delta units are selected (m, yd, km, nm, etc), the vertical and horizontal grid lines are constructed using the same delta distance (thus a selected delta of 1 kyd will have lines of 1 kyd separation in the horizontal and vertical). The Local Grid ( ) is a modified grid for which the origin has been over-ridden. Change the Origin attribute to move the grid origin. The PlotOrigin attribute has been provided to draw a small point at the origin of the grid - useful when initially designing/recording the grid. The Debrief installation includes a Coastline Data Introduction low-resolution coastline datafile. Whilst it does cover the whole globe, it does so at a low resolution, so is only useful for an overview. The vectored chart data discussed later provides a much lower resolution of data.

The addition of vectored chart data is covered later in this document, in . The image below provides a sample of the level of detail supplied.

Whilst the VPF dataset ETOPO Data provides a contoured bathymetry within broad depth steps, the ETOPO dataset provides a gridded bathymetry in 5' or 2' steps. When you ask Debrief to plot an ETOPO background, Debrief will try to load an ETOPO-2 dataset first, followed by an ETOPO-5 dataset if that is unavailable. The image below provides a sample of the level of detail supplied.

The Drawing toolbar and menu are used to place geographic features on the plot; features which are geographically fixed. In general, when you create them, their corners must be specified by copying a location from the plot and posting it into the property of the relevant corner.

By default, new drawing features are placed in the Misc layer, from where they can be moved to other layers as required. If you're creating lots of drawing features, and want to place them directly into target layers, select on Manually select target layer from the top of the Drawing menu. When this setting is ticked, Debrief will prompt you to select a target layer for each new drawing feature added to the plot. Clear the ticked setting to return the target layer to the Misc layer The Label Annotations Label drawing item allows you to place a labelled symbol on the plot. Typically this may be used to annotate events on the plot, or to add an extra feature which did not warrant its own Debrief REP entry. Like all annotations Labels have time start and end properties. Because of this they can be placed on the Tote and used in analysis, as you will learn later. A custom editor is supplied (see below) for editing locations of data items, it is used frequently in Debrief. Clicking on the expand button will let you edit individual lat/long fields (shown in figure ). Alternatively, you may set the location to a specific point on the plot. Right-click on the plot and select Copy cursor location. Then click once on the location editor to reveal the Paste button (shown in ), and click it to paste the cursor location.

Note that the text for the label itself can be a multi-line piece of text. When in the text-editor box for the label, just press the return key on your keyboard to move to the next line. The multi-line piece of text will be centre formatted on screen according to the Label Location property. The multi-line label is also available for all labels on the Debrief plot. Note that when the label is stored to disk in the Debrief plot-file format, the '\n' character used internally to represent the new line is converted to a '\\n' string to allow its easy storage. The Ellipse shape works in much Annotations Ellipse the same way as a Label, except an ellipse is drawn on the plot instead of the labelled symbol. The size of the ellipse is dictated by the Maxima and Minima values which specify the lengths of its semi-major and semi-minor axes, expressed in user-selectable distance units. These values are the distances from the centre of the ellipse to the furthest and closest points on it's perimeter, respectively. The direction of the ellipse is specified by the orientation, expressed in degrees. Debrief does not check that the maxima is larger that the minima, it merely plots an ellipse oriented about the semi-major axis. The Polygon drawing feature Annotations Polygon allows more varied shapes to be plotted within Debrief. A series of points (called a Path) are added to a Shape which are the connected up to create a Polygon. The points in the path may be typed in, double-clicked, or dragged to produce the correct polygon. When a new polygon is created, its editor panel will open as shown below:

The properties shown are similar to those shown for most other shapes, with the exception of the actual location of the polygon. Instead of being able to directly edit the points in the polygon, an indication of the number of points is provided, together with a button which will take you to the Path editor. The Path editor is shown below:

When it opens, the Path editor contains a single point (incidentally, this point it is placed a the centre of the current dataset). The four buttons at the top-right of the panel allow you to move the points up and down, create a new point, and delete a point. To edit a point, first single-click on it, it will then be shown in the lower panel. You may then click on the Edit or Select Point buttons to either type-in the location of the point or to double-click the new location for the point. Double-click on a point to edit it's individual attributes in the Properties View, or right-click on a point to paste the location currently on the clipboard. The Rectangle, Circle and Line shapes Annotations Rectangle, Circle, Line, Arc work in the same way as the others described here, the Location Editor described above being used to set the corners, centre, or ends as required. Some of the more basic drawing items have a single DTG parameter instead of TimeStart and Time_End properties. Where there is a single time, the time-analytical features of Debrief (such as Snail mode) treat the feature as alive for three minutes either side of the time value. To draw a line created from an origin with values of range and bearing, first create the line, and put the start point of the line at the origin. Now switch the mouse mode to Range/Bearing ( ). Now click on the button labelled Select Point for LineStart, and drag the mouse out from the origin point. The current range and bearing will be displayed at the bottom-left of the screen. When the mouse is at the desired range and bearing right-click and copy the position onto the clipboard. Next, paste that location into the LineEnd value. Debrief provides a builder dialog to assist in the creation of buoyfields. The creation of buoyfields is covered later in Handling Buoyfields. To edit any existing annotation, double on it on the plot or the Layer Manager to select it - it's attributes will then be available from the Properties View. Alternatively, right-click on an item on the Plot or Layer Manager, and editable attributes are available from the object's drop-down list. Only boolean (true/false) and list-related (top/bottom/left/right etc) are editable from the right-click menu. The Layer Manager provides a tree-oriented view of all of the editable data within a plot, organised into layers. New items added to the plot are placed into a Misc layer. From here they can be reorganised into suitably themed layers via cut/paste.

Reveal the Layer Manager by selecting it from the Window/Show View... drop-down list. Once open you will see the data shown as a series of layers - each with a tick indicating if it's visible or not. A toolbar provides command buttons to make items visible or not visible, and buttons are enabled to make an entity the primary or secondary track when applicable. Note that not just tracks may be denoted primary or secondary: and graphic item with a position and date-time can be selected: thus Debrief can be configured to show a running indication of bearing and range for a series of vessels from a single label datum (representing a sonar-buoy or mine). The drop-down menu provides further commands, significantly including the ability to add a new layer; Create Layer. Further commands are available when right-clicking on one or more Layer Manager elements: in particular the ability to cut/copy/paste elements between layers and plots, together with the command to view a time-variable graph of the selected elements (see ). Items may be cut, copied and pasted between Layers using the commands contained in the menus obtained by right-clicking on the item. The cut command may be used on it's own to delete an item. Copying items is a quick way of making duplicates of a correctly formatted annotation or screen item such as a rectangle or ellipse. In addition to copying/moving items between layers, items and layers themselves can be copied or moved between sessions within Debrief. To paste a layer (or track) into the top level of the layer manager just click on the white space below the displayed layers and select Paste Item form the popup menu. All top-level layers (that it screen items which appear at the top level in Layer Manager, such as Tracks, ETOPO data and Layers themselves) can have a line width assigned to them. This setting is observed when plotting all items in that layer. The smallest line width supported is hairwidth, which plots the finest line the particular output device (screen or printer) can produce. The line-width parameter can be accessed by right-clicking on the screen item directly in addition to via the Layer Manager. You may (or my not) know what the Replay file format used to load data into Debrief looked like. Whilst it is compact and easy to use, unfortunately the Replay file format does not allow us to store all of the formatting we have applied to the Debrief plot, nor the coordinates of what you are currently viewing, nor how you have arranged to store your data in layers. This problem is overcome by the use of the Debrief Plot-File format, an application defined using XML. Have a quick read about XML in the Reference Guide or Glossary if you're not aware of it and are sufficiently interested, otherwise, here's an overview: Debrief stores plots using XML XML stands for eXstensible Markup Language, which allows structured data to be stored in text format, and is a world-wide standard promoted by http://www.w3c.org. XML files can be edited outside Debrief, allowing you to cut and paste between plot-files to build up a new Plot-File, all in a text editor Whilst a plot is typically created from an REP file, it may not be saved back into that REP file - it must be saved as an XML Plot-File. To save your work as an XML file, click on the Save button: from the Workbench toolbar or the File menu. A file dialog will open (see below), allowing you to save the current session as a Debrief Plot-File ( xml).Debrief will only let you save the new plot into one of your project folders, so you must both select a folder and a provide a filename for the new file. Usefully, Debrief guesses that you probably want to name the plot the same as the REP file first loaded. Hey, it's only a guess.

Save-as functionality is provided through the Save As button, next to the Save button in the File menu. Debrief plot files can grow very large, and on occasion the memory required for the save operation can reach the upper limit provided to the application by default. When Debrief fails during the Save operation due to reaching the upper memory limit it stops trying to save to file and shows a message dialog advising you to increase the limit:Ran out of memory whilst saving plot, try adding -Xmx256m to the command line. This extra parameter passed when Debrief is starting instructs your PC to provide Debrief with 256 Megabytes of memory. If you continue to receive the error message try increasing the memory allocation to 512 Megabytes. The save operation itself is conducted in a two-stage process. If the operation entails saving over an existing file (when you just do a plain Save, or Save As over-writing an older version) Debrief first writes the plot to a subtlely different filename in the same directory (plot.xml would get saved to ~plot.tmp). If the save operation completes successfully then the older file is deleted and the temporary file renamed to the originally requested filename. Thus, your existing file only gets overwritten on successful completion of the save. With a plot already open, you are able to drag a Debrief XML or REP file into it's chart, adding the content to the existing session. Dragging multiple files onto the plot area adds them all to the existing session. To create a composite plot like this, you can start by using Debrief's New Plot Wizard (see relevant Cheat Sheet) Analysis is the core function of Track Data Primary & Secondary Tracks Debrief. In this section (at last) you are going to gain some familiarity with how Debrief can be used to analyse maritime exercises. We'll have a brief explanation of the Tote at this point, using the image below.

The Tote area is used to show the current and relative status between two or more platform tracks. The information on the Tote is dynamic, showing vessel information at the time indicated in the Stepper Control. The primary and secondary tracks may not contain values exactly at the time in the time stepper control. For both the tote display and the plot-highlights, Debrief uses the data values recorded on or immediately after the indicated stepper time (see the for more detail). One track currently loaded is assigned as the Primary track (the blue track in this instance), and then one or more tracks are assigned as Secondary tracks. The primary track always displays absolute data such as current course, speed and depth, as illustrated above. The secondary tracks display this data together with relative data such as Range and Bearing to the Primary track. Not only tracks can be placed on the Tote. Buoyfields and most annotations (labels, circles, etc) can also be set as primary or secondary track. If no time is available for an annotation it is deemed to always be valid, and calculations are shown although the time field is displayed as "n/a". However, if the annotation has start and end times the tote displays "n/a" when outside that period and calculated data when inside it. It may be useful to remember that the Primary Track is usually assigned to the Target, thereby allowing a constant display of target bearing and range. There can be any number of secondary tracks. Debrief displays calculated results of the relationship between each one and the Primary Track. To see the relationship between a pair of secondary tracks, one of them must be set to the Primary track. The following calculated data is presented, where the current point on each track is used for the calculation: Range The range between the current point on the secondary track and the current point on the primary track using the earth model as described in the Glossary, displayed in the units stored in the Debrief preferences window. Debrief NG introduced the option of showing slant range, accessible from Debrief's Preferences window. If you have indicated that you want to view slant range, then the range shown is a function of horizontal range and vertical separation. Bearing The bearing between the points. Rel Bearing The relative bearing between the heading of the secondary track, and the bearing to the primary track. There are two formats used for relative bearing, depending on the setting of Relative bearing format in the Window/Preferences dialog. If the format is specified as UK, the R and G characters at the start of the result are short for Red and Green, which indicate that the contact is to the Port or Starboard of the secondary track. If the format is specified as US, the value uses 0 as directly ahead and continues clockwise through 180 (astern) and back round to 359.9. Speed The current speed of the indicated track (no actual calculation is performed here; the value from the data-file is displayed directly). Course The current course of the indicated track (no actual calculation is performed here; the value from the data-file is displayed directly). Depth The current depth of the indicated track (no actual calculation is performed here; the value from the data-file is displayed directly). Brg Rate The instantaneous bearing rate of the primary track as observed from the secondary track. This value is explained in the Glossary. Time Where track data is not recorded at regular steps, and tracks do not have data at the same time steps, there is a likelihood that the value displayed on the tote will not have been recorded at the current tote time. The time field shows the actual time at which the data value was recorded for that track. When more than two tracks are loaded, the value n/a is shown in Tote calculations for the primary track which rely on other track data (range, bearing, rel bearing, brg rate). This is because it is unclear which inter-track relationship is being calculated. Where only two tracks are loaded (one primary and one secondary), the tote is able to show relative calculated data for both. Assigning primary and secondary tracks is covered in the respective Cheat Sheet. If you have more than two tracks, it can be quicker to assign the primary track manually and then press Auto Populate to assign the remaining tracks as secondary. A Circle currently only has a single "Centre" DTG value - so it will only be highlighted for 3 minutes either side of this point. Better results are obtained by using a Label (which has a picture of a text label on it), since Labels have start and finish DTGs. It is not just tracks that can be added to the Tote, experiment with right-clicking on features on the plot and see if they have the "Set Primary Track" or "Set Secondary Track" commands available (although read the note below about these). In this way you can make a timed data point (represented by a Circle with a very small radius) the primary track, then add a number of vessel tracks as secondary tracks, and then as you move through the data you can constantly see the vessel range and bearings from this data point. This is particularly useful for seeing vessel ranges and bearings from a sensor such as a sonar buoy. Remember to set the DTG data for the data point to time(s) near those of the track - or else in your example Debrief will assume the "sonar buoy" is not yet active. The limits on the time period are the outer time limits of the visible data in the primary and secondary tracks currently displayed on the Tote, so following a filter operation (introduced later) the start/end times will be changed to reflect the time limits specified. The keyboard can also be used for moving backwards and forwards, although Debrief has to know that it's the Stepper that you want the keys to control. So, after clicking on the time-slider control you can then switch to keyboard control of the Tote as follows: Page Up/Down keys: these control small step backward/forward resp. Page Up/Down arrows: these control large step backward/forward resp. Home/End keys: these control goto First/Last resp. In Autumn 2005 the Interpolate Points property was added to tracks. When ticked, Debrief interpolates positions between actual data points. The highlight cursor changes appearance when on an interpolated data point.

Time is managed within Debrief through the Time Controller. This view displays the current serial time, allows control of that time, and provides access to a series of time-related functions in Debrief.

Your temporal (time-related) view of track data is dependent on three settings:Display ModeHow the track is displayed Highlight Mode How the current position is displayed Absolute/Relative mode Whether the data is plotted North-oriented, or using the current heading of the primary track You access these modes using the buttons on the Time Controller toolbar and the Time Controller drop-down menu.

As you can see, the first two items on the menu allow you to select the current Display/Highlight modes. In each sub-menu is a command to edit the currently mode. Later menu options allow you to format how information is displayed on the menu, and perform other time-related activities. The first three icons on the Time Controller toolbar allow you to choose two combinations of plotting modes. The first two control how data is displayed: in Normal Mode, all exercise data is displayed, whereas in Snail mode, only the current position and a series of recent points are displayed (similar to a Snail with trail following behind it). As you'd imagine, Normal Mode is the mode that is used for most analysis tasks. It's North oriented and shows all relevant data. It's also quite simple, only having two properties, both of which control the presentation of the highlight:ColorYes, the Color of the highlight Size I know, I know, it's the size of the rectangle used to plot the highlight (measured in pixels)

The Snail Trail is used for specific analysis tasks when you need to concentrate on the specific activities around a certain time, without the clutter of the remaining track data.

The circle represents the current position, the stalk direction represents the current course, and its length gives a relative idea of the vessel speed (when compared to the length of the other vessel's stalk, boys will be boys). The dots trailing back from the current position are a snail trail of points going back in time. If you move forward and backward with the stepper control you will see these trails moving. The following properties are editable for a snail trail: Fade Points this will cause the points in the trail to fade away to the background colour Link positions this will plot a line between the points in the trail Plot Track Name this will plot the track name alongside the current position Point Size this will change the size of the points together with the thickness of the lines drawn on the plot, Trail Length this will change the time period covered by the trail Vector Stretch this will change the amplification applied to the speed when drawing the speed vector; very fast vessels (or weapons) will need the this stretch reduced to allow stalks of sensible length. Three highlight modes are provided:Default HighlightShows a rectangle at the current position. From the default highlight properties you are able to select the colour and size of the rectangle to plot Symbol Highlight Shows the symbol () currently assigned in the properties for each track. From the symbol highlight properties you are able to select the size at which the symbols should be plotted. Range Ring Highlight This mode shows a series of rings around the current location. The editable properties are listed below. For range rings you are able to edit the following properties:ArcsThe angle of arc that the spokes extend out to. The angle is measured either side of current heading. Color The colour to plot the range rings Num Rings How many range rings to plot, uniformly distributed from the center to the outer radius Radius The radius of the outermost range ring Spoke separation The angular separation of the spokes plotted within the range rings, centered on current heading. Relative Mode affects the orientation of the plot. The plot is always oriented along the heading of the primary track, with the current primary track location placed at the centre of the plot. Relative Display Mode is particularly useful for analysing one vessel trailing another. Make the trailing vessel the primary track, and the vessel being trailed the secondary track. As you step forward through the serial you will clearly be able to see the relative bearing of the contact as held by the trailing vessel. The sample shown below gives a demonstration of the use of this relative mode. You can quickly see that the blue vessel is directly ahead of the red trailing vessel, and your use of the Range Ring Highlighter gives us a quick indication of range.

The green digits of the time display are tied closely to the slider-bar immediately beneath them. Dragging the slider controls the current display time together with how the current data is displayed. Other Debrief views (such as the Narrative Viewer and the Time-Variable graphs) update in response to time changes from the time slider. A range of display formats are provided to make the displayed time more consistent with that in a supporting document, or of sufficient fidelity to support the current analysis. Beneath the time-display is the time-slider, used to quickly move through a time-period. By default the slider is of infinite resolution, stopping exactly on the second/millisecond proportionate to the position of the slider. Debrief can be configured such that the slider stops on higher resolutions by selecting the relevant increment from the Time slider increment list in the Time Controller's drop-down menu. Debrief NG introduces the concept of Bookmarks. These represent the combination of a DTG, a remark, and the name of a plot-file, and are displayed in the Bookmarks view. With the view open you can quickly move between significant events across a number of files. Bookmarks are added by clicking on the Add DTG as bookmark command from the Time Controller's drop-down menu. The bookmarks view will not automatically open, but the bookmarks themselves will be present when it is. The current DTG is used as a default remark - but you'll get most mileage our of the bookmarks by describing the event that you're bookmarking. The pair of sliders at the foot of the Time Controller view allow you to set start and finish times. These times are not set in support of a single Debrief operation, but are used across a range of operations. When dragging the sliders, hold down the shift-key to move in whole segments (hours, days, as appropriate). Drag the shaded section to retain the period length but change its origin (again using the shift-key if appropriate). When the Filter to time period radio button is depressed, changing the time of the start or end time-sliders will automatically filter the displayed data to the indicated period. In this mode, you can select a 6-hour period (for example), and drag it through the full serial time with shift-key depressed to view a moving "window" of data. In addition to filtering the visible data to the indicated period, the period covered by the time-slider is also reduced. Drag out the start/end time-sliders to return to the original time period. Another operation that relies on the selected time period is exporting calculated data to the clipboard. This operation is available form the Time Controller's drop-down menu, and it performs a series of calculations for each data-point in the indicated time period. These calculations are then placed on the system clipboard in Comma-Separated-Variable format for reuse in other applications, Microsoft Excel, for instance.A header line is written first, indicating the contents of each column: Track Time(hhmmss) Depth(metres) Speed(Knots) Course(degs) Range(yards) Bearing(degs) Rel Bearing(degs - using Relative bearing format specified in the Window/Preferencesdialog) Brg Rate(deg/min) Color (for this track point) Name PrimaryName The results from the primary track are listed first, which (as in the Tote) do not show results of calculated operations: CARPET 12/Dec/95 05:00:00 000 02.00 269.7 n/a n/a n/a n/a 0500 0500 Then the secondary tracks are listed: BUNKUM 12/Dec/95 05:50:00 000 00.00 000.0 12381 311.0 R49.0 R0.264 F5 0550 The Colour parameter shows the colour of the track point used in that calculation. On occasion analysts colour a track according to whether that participant is in contact or not. Exporting the colour flag to Excel allows the post-analysis data to be filtered according to periods in contact - or any other time-dependent aspect specified by the analyst. The application of a particular colour to sections of track is performed within the Layer Manager. The last two columns output give identifier information: the first of these is the name of the current item in this track, and the second is the point in the primary track nearest to the current time stamp: that-is the point in the primary track which has been used for the calculated results. The VCR controls allow you to move forwards and backwards in time through the plot. Looking at the order of buttons in the Time Controller screenshot above, the commands allow you to move to the beginning, move a large step backwards, move a small step backwards and repeat the last time step continuously (small or large step, backwards or forwards). The remaining buttons repeat these operations in the "forward" direction. The size of small and large steps is controlled by the Time Controller properties window, accessed by selecting Properties/Time Controller. Also available from this set of properties is the Step Interval; the time interval that Debrief waits before automatically moving forwards. Beyond the operations available from the Time Controller, the time-period is used to support other Debrief operations. The most significant of these operations is when producing time variable plots (see ). The current time period settings dictate the extent of what information is calculated for these plots. It's worth reminding you at this point about the Range Bearing measuring tool which is frequently useful in analysis. The calculated range and bearing is displayed at the mid-point of the line and at the foot of the DebriefNG screen (where it remains until you make another measurement). The default units for the range displayed are configured using the CMAP section of the Preferences dialog in the Window menu. The preferences page can also be accessed by double-clicking on the range/bearing slave display at the foot of the screen. The Range Bearing calculation is performed using the Algorithms Earth Model Earth Model algorithms in the current Earth Model, as described later in . The Earth Model used by the application is modular and interchangeable. In the initial release of the application the calculations use the Rhumb-Line Formulae for Short-distance sailing, as described in Admiralty Manual of Navigation, Volume 2, 1973. Short-distance sailing is defined as the following of a rhumb-line track for a distance not greater than 600' . Lastly for the "viewing of plots", Debrief provides 3D View Introduction support for viewing track files in 3D. To obtain a 3-d view, the tracks currently loaded must contain Depth information, and the correct libraries (Java3D) must be installed on the machine. Debrief contains a set of 3-d models for vessels most frequently analysed at the MWC. If you require a model not currently available, contact the Debrief Project Manager, and it will be added to the queue. If you already hold a copy of the model (as a .wrl file in VRML format), e-mail it in, which will speed up its inclusion. If you select a symbol-type for which there isn't currently a model, Debrief uses a correctly-oriented cone shape to represent the current location and course. Unfortunately there is not any 3-d data in the sample plots we've been using so far, but another sample file does. Close the current session, open a new, blank, one, and load the data-file named sen_tracks.xml. This is a datafile produced using ASSET, a simulator under development at PlanetMayo. Once the tracks are loaded, you will see the view as below:

If you don't have primary and secondary tracks on the tote, initialise them now (or do it automatically, if you know how). Debrief now knows the time period covered by the tracks. The updated 3D viewer in Debrief now shows 3-dimensional models of the exercise participants. The model used is taken from the SymbolType property of each track (although the default type is Submarine). So before opening the 3-d view, change the SymbolType of the Frigate track to Frigate. To do this, right-click on the track and select Frigate from the SymbolType drop-down list. Next press the "View in 3D" button to open the 3-d view window. A new window will open, containing a 3D view of the current track data, as shown below (after a little screen-tidying):

Not all objects viewable on the normal 2-d Debrief plot are applicable in 3-dimensions, but most are. If one is absent which you think would usefully be shown in 3-d then please approach the Debrief Project Manager. Additionally it is not always clear whether a 2-d item (such as a labelled annotation) should be visible in 3-d. Such an instance is a labelled annotation added to the 2-d plot to help the readability of a plot in a report (for example a label placed on a sea-mount). This labelled annotation may just clutter the 3-d plot, so Debrief only shows labelled annotations when their symbol is visible; change the symbol of a labelled annotation to not visible, and it will disappear from the 3-d plot. The view is controlled with the 3D View Default Views mouse using the following buttons: Button Operation Left Rotate plot, effectively changing the current heading Middle (or Alt- Left ) Zoom in and out of the view Right Pan the plot around the view In addition to mouse-movement, controls have been added to the view to adjust the current view depth, heading, pan and zoom. Experiment with moving around the plot using these controls aswell as the mouse. The drop-down list provided in the centre of the window provides a list of preset viewpoints. The Surface Look and Underwater Look viewpoints zoom out to the south of the centre of the plot, positioning the viewer either slightly above, or slightly below the water surface. The Top-Down viewpoint provides a god's-eye view of the data. Lastly are a series of viewpoints which each provide a "chase-plane" view of a particular participant. Thus it is possible to position yourself immediately above and behind a participant as it moves forward through an exercise serial. Now, to return to the original view, select Surface Look from the drop-down list. Next rotate the heading to 270 degrees, take the depth down to -010, and zoom in to view the exercise from the stern of the submarine.

A set of properties are also provided from the 3d view toolbar to 3D View Editable properties support the 3-d editing. The following properties are provided: Parameter Description Model Stretch A scaling factor applied to the models, typically used for presenting broad overviews of a serial Grid Delta The spacing to use for the grid plotted on the surface Show Coastline Whether to plot a coastline on the sea surface (not yet implemented) Show Bathy Lines Whether to show a wireframe grid representing the surface of the ocean/land Show Bathy Surface Whether to show a shaded surface representation of the ocean bottom/land surface. Points above water are shaded green. Show Drop Bars Whether to show drop bars which stretch from a current vessel position vertically up or down to the sea surface, to assist in the spatial separation of vessels. Show Foggy Ocean Whether to shade the ocean surface Show Sea Surface Whether to plot a grid on the sea surface Show Snail Trail Whether to plot a snail-trail behind each vessel Show Vessel Status Whether to show a textual status string for each vessel Snail Trail Length The length (in time) of snail trail to plot for each vessel.