The real environment in which military operations take place is dynamic and ever changing under the influence of natural effects and human activities. In contrast, synthetic representations of these environments used in simulations typically have had little support for dynamic effects and run-time changes. Advances in computer graphics research and innovations in game technology now allow for real-time dynamic simulation of specific features, such as physics-based building destruction or particle-based terrain deformation. However, widespread application of these algorithms and techniques in the context of military training and mission preparation is complicated by the additional requirements imposed by the distributed and heterogeneous nature of military simulation technology, such as the need for correlation and coping with specific limitations of (legacy) simulators. In this survey, we review the state of the art of methods and techniques for dynamic synthetic environments and discuss their applicability and current limitations in the context of distributed interactive simulation.
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