SimCentric is a battle simulation training software developer for the industry standard VBS2 platform used by the top militaries in the world. Its co-founders and owners, Sri Lankan Romesh Ranawana and Australian Adam Easton shared an office during their DPhil (PhD) research on Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence at Oxford during which time they discussed post-graduation options. It took two more years for the duo to co-found SimCentric in 2009 with its software development centre based in Colombo.
Today its 100-plus staffed Colombo software centre is the top global developer of supporting software for the VBS2 platform. Battle simulation training software is similar in principle to video game development but the realism expected from the world’s major militaries is much higher than any game. SimCentric has launched two products and is working on eight more. Its VBS2 Fires is used to train forward observers who relay coordinates to gun crews to direct artillery fire. The software throws in real field challenges like varying wind, humidity and a confluence of things on the ground including civilians. Often, an artillery crew will miss their target with their first shells and then it falls on the forward observer, using binoculars and a laser rangefinder to relay corrections to the gun crew.
Its second product is similar but is used to train forward observers who call air strikes, VBS2 Strike. Unlike artillery crews, aircraft have to hit a target accurately in one sortie. Among the other products that are to be launched soon are ones allowing crowds and traffic to be added to virtual environments.
VBS2 started life as a gaming platform before morphing in to a battle simulator. SimCentric products – which run on VBS2 – however differ from video games because of their ability to mimic the very precise characteristics of ammunition and other ordnance.