Amazon Web Services (AWS) unveiled AWS SimSpace Weaver, a new service that allows users to run real-time simulations of different situations in city-scale environments in the cloud.
According to AWS, the new SimSpace Weaver service allows city managers and event planners to run simulations of things like traffic, public transportation, or supply chain infrastructure for cities or countries whole.
City planners, for example, can run simulations of natural disasters to test response systems. Event planners could simulate a major sporting event to see how it would impact nearby traffic conditions.
Calculation Challenge
Space simulations have generally been limited to a single piece of hardware. Simulating larger worlds with more dynamic entities has long been a problem, as it required a larger computer. The simulation developers therefore made compromises on the size and number of independent entities it contained.
Simulation of environments requires modeling various elements, such as people and vehicles. And all of their different behaviors have to be calculated as they move around a world and interact with other entities.
In tackling this computational challenge, AWS suggests that it is useful to simulate large crowds and simulate smart cities populated by vehicles, people, and other objects.
With SimSpace Weaver, users can run simulations on up to 10 Very Large EC2 C5 Intel Xeon instances. The service supports over one million independent and dynamic entities. Users specify the number of instances needed and how the simulation should be partitioned, and SimSpace Weaver automatically manages resources when moving entities between partitions.
Three open zones in Europe
“SimSpace Weaver handles the provisioning of EC2 instances, launches simulation applications, and cleans up the environment at the end of the simulation,” explains Marcia Villalba of AWS in a blog post.
The SimSpace Weaver Application SDK for C++ provides APIs that developers can use to control entities in a simulation and respond to events in the world. The application is then uploaded to Amazon S3 storage and can be used in a simulation by allowing it to interface with SimSpace Weaver software running on a user’s instances.
Developers using Unreal Engine 5 or Unity can also use SimSpace Weaver’s out-of-the-box plugins.
SimSpace Weaver costs $6.09 per hour per instance. It is available in AWS Regions US East (Ohio), US East (Northern Virginia), US West (Oregon), Asia Pacific (Singapore), Asia Pacific (Sydney), Europe (Ireland), Europe (Frankfurt) and Europe (Stockholm).
Source: ZDNet.com