Integrating Legacy ESVS Displays in the Unity Game Engine

Current augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) displays are targeted at entertainment and home education purposes. However, these headsets can be used for prototyping and developing display concepts to be used in aviation. In previous papers we have demonstrated the use of helmet mounted enhanced and synthetic vision systems (ESVS). One of the most widely used engines for VR and AR applications, the Unity game engine, supports a broad range of display hardware, but it can be challenging to integrate legacy ESVS software. We demonstrate techniques to integrate legacy software in Unity, showing advantages and drawbacks of different approaches. We detail problems in case the source software is written for a different platform, e.g., when integrating OpenGL displays in a DirectX environment. While the demonstrated techniques are implemented and tested with the Unity game engine, they can be used for other target game and render engines, too