Generate the scenario with Veneris

• Once you have the files in some folder, go to the Unity editor and click Veneris > Load SUMO Network in Editor. Click on the SumoBuilderOnEditor component and select the corresponding files. We suggest you tick "Use JSON files" and use the JSON version of the SUMO files. Performance is much better and less prone to XML deserialization errors
• Then click first on CreateNetworkBuilder. Now you have a child component, where you can select additional options.
• Once you have finished setting the additional options in the child component, click Build Network and you will have the road network created.

  After creating the road network, do not forget to click on BuildSumoConnections and Build Global Network Manager buttons. They are necessary to build correctly the routes.

  
• Do the same and create builders and build routes and environments with the other builders. Configure additional options in the child components and click on create. In particular, if you plan to use Opal late, make sure you configure the environment builder to use Opal. In the end you will have all the components you see in the last picture. At this point your scenario is generated and you can go on and add simulation components.
• A last required step is to select the vehicle you are going to use. In the SumoVehicleManager component, set the vehicle prefab to STDRSCar. That is the only vehicle prefab that should work correctly at the moment. Set also the Vehicle Prefab Name to "STDRSCar" if you want to use different visuals.

Add additional simulation components

Before starting the simulation you need to add a few more components to your scene. They are Prefabs, so you only have to drag them to your scene tree, that is, drag them from the folder to the Hierarchy tab, on the left, not the Scene tab.

• In the Project tab, go to Resources>Prefabs in the Assets tree and drag the following prefabs to your scene (remember, drag to the Hierarchy tab): OrbitPanZoomCamera, FollowVehicleCameraRig, this would add a couple of cameras. Delete the default MainCamera.

  Add the SimInformationCanvas prefab that would add a UI layer to the game. You need also to Create > UI > EventSystem for the UI to work.

  Finally add a SimulationManager prefab.

  
• You need to add a configuration file to your Unity project root folder. This is a simple text file. Name this veneris.ini or whatever, but change the corresponding path and name in the SimulationManager component. In this file add the following lines:

  sim-time=-1
  no-vehicle-manager=false
  output-dir=yourpath
  

  The meaning is more or less obvious, set the maximum simulation time or -1 to let it run until no more vehicles are present, no-vehicle-manager can be used with statically placed vehicles and output-dir is the folder where your results files are saved.
• That's all. Now you can run your simulation on the editor or build an executable.
• An additional tip. If you try to run a large simulation (large number of vehicles), do not use the editor (try and you'll know why). Build an executable and run it without graphics (because you are interested in the simulation results and you do not need graphics, do you?) with

  ./executableName -nographics -batchmode
  
  

Build scenario

Follow the previous tutorial

Add communications components

• Now, you need to add the components that create the messages between Veneris and OMNET++. Just drag the following prefabs VenerisOpalManager and ExternalSim to your scene. VenerisOpalManager allows you to set Opal parameters. If you do not want to use Opal, just keep the defaults. In any case, you can override some parameters with OMNET++ and even force not to use Opal. In ExternalSim you can set the IP and port of the server or check to serialize messages to a file that can be used later with OMNET++ (unidirectional). This latter option is the preferred way at the moment. It creates a .mes file that can be used by OMNET++ to replay your scenario. Please note that the Unity simulations are not deterministic, due to a number of reasons, in particular due to the physics engine. It means that if you want to replicate exactly the same traffic simulation but with different parameters, say different propagation models, you need to use the same .mes file. Otherwise, if you just run the same scenario with Veneris, you end up not using exactly the same traffic simulation results with OMNET++.
• Change the vehicle prefab. You have to set in the SumoVehicleManager component the vehicle prefab to STDRSVenerisCar. Set also the vehicle prefab name to "STDRSVenerisCar" is you want to use different visuals.

Run the network simulation

• Feed the results to OMNET++. If you decide to run a coupled simulation, you have to run the OMNET++ components (see the corresponding tutorial (coming soon) and play to set the server to listen for Veneris messages before playing the Veneris simulation. Otherwise, just set the path of your .mes in the omnetpp.ini and run the OMNET++ simulator.

Example

Build scenario

Follow the previous tutorial if you want to build an scenario from a OSM map. You can also create your own meshes, with cubes or planes, or whatever, using Unity Create 3D Object.

Add static meshes and electromagnetic properties

For all the meshes that you want to send to Opal to participate in the ray tracing you have to add a StaticMesh component and a OpalMeshProperties component. The former does not need anything, but for the latter you have to fill the electromagnetic values of the material. It follows the ITU-R P.2040-1 format and conventions. If, in addition, you are going to use diffraction with edges, the faceIds have to be filled. It can be done automatically in the Opal > ExtractFaces menu. Please. note that all of this is filled automatically if you build the scenario from OSM maps as described in the previous tutorials

Add diffracting edges

So far, only a single diffraction is implemented in the Opal simulation, which means that no high order reflections-diffractions are computed. If you want to use diffraction, you have to add the diffracting edges you want to consider. You have to add a OpalEdge component and fill the values with the origin (O), edge vector (v), vectors describing face a (A) and face b (B) and the corresponding normals, as well as the faceId the correspond to. Due to the involved work, you usually create a Unity script to fill these values. Please. note that all of this is filled automatically if you build the scenario from OSM maps as described in the previous tutorials

Add Opal Manager

• Now, you have to add an Opal Manager. If you are not going to work with Veneris, you have to add just the OpalManager component. With that component you can customize the simulation optios, such as selecting the type of simulation you want to use:
  • Basic: only flat surfaces and horizontal or vertical polarizations.
  • Depolarization: flat surfaces with any linear polarization.
  • RDN: Ray Density Normalization: required for curved surfaces but can be used also with only flat surfaces. Valid for any linear polarization.
  • Single diffraction: just perform diffraction simulation, no reflections. Note that you can use diffraction with all the other simulations by checking the option in OpalManager. This is for testing only diffraction
  You can also set the Compute Mode between:
  • Voltage: induced voltage on the antenna after computing depolarization and antenna gain.
  • Field: electric field components on axis. This is the projection on the axis (X,Y,Z) of the electric field at the receiver point (no depolarization or antenna gain).
  

Add transmitter and receivers

• Transmitters and receivers are added by creating an empty object and adding the Antenna component. There are a few prefabs that can be used under Resources/Prefabs/Communications . You can place multiple transmitters and check Use Multitransmitter in the OpalManager to compute all the transmissions in parallel. It usually gives a little bit more of performance but it is usually simpler to just use a transmitter and several receivers. In general, you have to provide the code for your transmitter, or, if you just want one transmission, you can call Transmit() in the Start() method of your transmitter. Receivers may be placed by hand or with by creating an appropriate script. Make sure that you change the id of all transmitters and receivers. Every different antenna must have a different id. Antenna gain Antenna gains are provided in files with azimuth x elevation antenna gain values in dB. All the gains used have to be provided to OpalManager. Then each receiver and transmitter have to select one of the gain files (among the ones provided to OpalManager) and fill the corresponding path.

Loggers

You can add power loggers to save received power to a file by adding an empty object with a GlobalPowerLogger script and you can show the rays after transmission with the OpalLogTraceManager component. Be aware that using log traces with a very high number of rays may hang the Unity editor. You may have millions of ray hits (specially if you use RDN). When you use a log trace manager you have to select the asset for the RayPrefab as RayRenderer in Assets (at selection) and you have to select the gameobject that is transmitting in Transmitter, which is just the origin for the rays that are shown. The E file path is only filled if you use an external trace file.

So far the ray trace log is quite basic. For reflections, it just logs the ray hit points, sorted by number of reflections. For diffractions it is sorted by receiver, transmitter and edge. So there is no filtering by transmitter or any other fancy function. Even though the trace records multiple transmitters (if present), the GlobalPowerLogger component only takes one transmitter, so it is better to record traces with only one transmitter (and any number of receivers, of course).