Touring a Carnival Cruise Simulator: 210 Degrees of GeForce-Powered Projection 42
MojoKid writes Recently, Carnival cruise lines gave tours of their CSMART facility in Almere, the Netherlands. This facility is one of a handful in the world that can provide both extensive training and certification on cruise ships as well as a comprehensive simulation of what it's like to command one. Simulating the operation of a Carnival cruise ship is anything but simple. Let's start with a ship that's at least passingly familiar to most people — the RMS Titanic. At roughly 46,000 tons and 882 feet long, she was, briefly, the largest vessel afloat. Compared to a modern cruise ship, however, Titanic was a pipsqueak. As the size and complexity of the ships has grown, the need for complete simulators has grown as well. The C-SMART facility currently sports two full bridge simulators, several partial bridges, and multiple engineering rooms. When the Costa Concordia wrecked off the coast of Italy several years ago, the C-SMART facility was used to simulate the wreck based on the black boxes from the ship itself. When C-SMART moves to its new facilities, it'll pick up an enormous improvement in processing power. The next-gen visual system is going to be powered by104 GeForce Grid systems running banks of GTX 980 GPUs. C-SMART executives claim it will actually substantially reduce their total power consumption thanks to the improved Maxwell GPU. Which solution is currently in place was unclear, but the total number of installed systems is dropping from just over 500 to 100 rackmounted units.
882 foot Titanic (Score:4, Insightful)
At 882 feet, the modern 1100 foot super cruise ship doesn't kill it.
In gross tonnes, however, they're 3-4x larger.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L... [wikipedia.org]
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At 882 feet, the modern 1100 foot super cruise ship doesn't kill it.
You don't have to read the article but, if you just glance at it, one of the first things you'll see is a rendering of one of their cruise ships next to the titanic. I'd agree with the author, "Compared to a modern cruise ship, however, Titanic was a pipsqueak."
882 foot Titanic (Score:3)
Yes, a modern cruise ship does indeed "kill it". In length, volume, speed, height, and weight. You could probably fit 8-10 titanics in the AVERAGE modern cruise ship.
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You could probably fit 8-10 titanics in the AVERAGE modern cruise ship.
You probably couldn't, since their gross tonnage is only 3-4x larger.
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In terms of overall volume it might be true, in terms of displacement it would probably be false. IIRC modern cruise ships have more vessel above the waterline than anything which floated before them.
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Gross tonnage is ship volume and is THE measure of ship size.
The Titanic's GT was 46,000.
The top two Royal Caribbean ships are 225,000 and most of the rest of the pack weigh in at 140-150.
The're pretty much 4x or 3x the size (volume), and 20% longer.
Displacement is a different factor altogether, but even then...
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You are talking about water level volume and how that affects displacement wrt gross weight. I think the parent was talking about overall volume. As in the stuff above water. Cruse ships have a very shallow draft, they are wide and long. They are not liners. Ocean Liners where longer and much narrower with a deeper draft (and made with thicker skins) to enable high speed through very bad weather (but not ice burgs as it happens). They are built for different things. Cruise liners are a bit like a slightly s
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Oh I see what you mean by Gross tonnage. Now that is something I learned today.
Diseases? (Score:5, Funny)
Does it also simulate how viruses propagate amongst passengers? Can you simulate the scenario where all the toilets clog and the decks are awash with filth?
I demand realism from my simulators!
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210 degrees of what? (Score:1)
tl;dr... 210 degrees.... since we're speaking of GeForce devices... is that in Celsius? :p
Re:210 degrees of what? (Score:5, Funny)
Nautical charts (Score:2)
The only thing that the captain of the Costa Concordia needed to avoid those rocks was the ability to read a chart!
"she was, briefly, the largest vessel afloat" (Score:2)
I see what you did here!
Titanic (Score:3)
she was, briefly, the largest vessel afloat
No, she was the largest vessel, briefly afloat :-)
brace yourself .... (Score:2)
Simulate a cruise dance floor? (Score:2)
Que the norovirus jokes (Score:2)
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You can only cue one joke. After that, you queue them.
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Also, in the UK (Score:1)
At Warsash there is a similar set of systems: http://www.warsashacademy.co.uk/facilities/facilities.aspx
The engine room simulation looks pretty nice: http://www.warsashacademy.co.uk/facilities/engine-room-simulator/full-mission-engine-room-simulator.aspx
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At Warsash there is a similar set of systems: http://www.warsashacademy.co.u... [warsashacademy.co.uk]
The engine room simulation looks pretty nice: http://www.warsashacademy.co.u... [warsashacademy.co.uk]
My alma mater has a few simulators, but the main training tool is a 450ft ship [wikipedia.org]. When studying to be a ship engineer or a bridge officer, there is no substitute for the real thing, so we had the real thing. Each of the serious maritime universities in the USA (of which there are about 7) has a ship. Usually, the ships actually are owned by the government [wikipedia.org] and can be called up by the government in times of need for disaster response or other reasons.
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Did you look at the low speed handling set up. Its brill. Lots of big model boats travelling very slowly with trainees inside them.
http://www.warsashacademy.co.u... [warsashacademy.co.uk]
Low tech but it apparently still works well.
Oh they have other bits to but that made me smile.
Damn, I thought it was a game! (Score:2)
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Bring the nose candy, she's into it.
Cool! (Score:1)
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How do you know? Maybe they're talking about a separate room filled with CAD workstations.