OceanLens Empowers the Navy to Explore Undersea in 3D

On land, software programs like Google Earth VR give average citizens the ability to explore global cities and national parks without ever leaving the comfort of their living rooms. But undersea, the sailors who operate U.S. Navy submarines in often hostile conditions still rely upon two-dimensional (2D) charts and non-intuitive displays to plan missions, evaluate potential threats, and navigate the ocean terrain. 

Enter OceanLens, a Booz Allen-developed geospatial visualization tool that creates a three-dimensional (3D) virtual rendering of the surface and undersea domains. OceanLens empowers Navy sailors to explore any vantage point from the seafloor to outer space in virtual reality or on a 2D screen. The tool not only propels maritime navigation into the 21st century but provides the submarines that represent our nation’s first line of defense with a distinct tactical advantage in undersea warfare.  

OceanLens began as the brainchild of a group of Booz Allen scientists, acousticians, and former submarine officers who recognized that the navigation systems on submarines have not evolved significantly since the Cold War. Those systems still display important tactical data, like how sound waves move through water, in non-intuitive manners and limit sailors’ ability to anticipate and plan for all the potential scenarios that could unfold during a mission.  

Drawing upon the firm’s deep understanding of 3D visualization, virtual reality software development, and the use of graphic processing, this team of immersive experience experts set out to give Navy sailors a dolphin’s eye view of the ocean environment. Working closely with the Commander Submarine Forces Pacific (COMSUBPAC) to understand the specific challenges Navy subs face, they created a tool that enhances specific warfighting tasks related to the safety of ships and stealth navigation.

Built in the gaming engine Unity, a real-time 3D development platform, OceanLens fuses actual topographic and bathymetric (the measurement of depth in water) data into an interactive 3D environment. It allows for seamless transitions between underwater and surface visualizations while providing complete global coverage of bathymetry and surface topography.

Using OceanLens, a mission planner can drop a virtual sub anywhere in the world, visualize the surroundings from the ocean floor all the way into space, and perform multiple “what-if” course of action scenarios in a fraction of the time that it takes using current navigation tools. The software architecture leverages Unity’s powerful graphic processing capabilities, thereby enabling OceanLens to process relevant data sets and depict any underwater, oversea, or air environment at the appropriate scale—all without overtaxing a submarine’s processing resources or transmission bandwidths.

To enable sailors to realistically simulate any scenario their submarine might encounter underwater or on the surface, OceanLens allows for the integration of 3D objects, like significant topographic features or other ships, and geospatial and meteorological data sets. Its efficient streaming techniques display this data at the highest resolution available while simultaneously providing a holistic, customizable view to the user. OceanLens can also integrate sound propagation models, already accredited by the Navy, that visually represent how sound waves will emanate from a submarine, bounce off the ocean floor and surface, and dissipate over various distances. This helps mission planners place ships in spots where they are least likely to be detected by other warcraft. 

OceanLens has opened the Navy’s eyes to the ways immersive technologies can aid a variety of operations, including specific mission planning, tactical submarine positioning, undersea sensor placement—and much more. This groundbreaking tool reflects Booz Allen’s commitment to uniting open solutions with innovative ideas to give the military an advantage on the future battlefield.