Method and systems for anticipatorily updating a remote repository

A method for supporting an interactive computer simulation system that executes an interactive computer simulation on a first simulation station allowing one or more users to interact in the interactive computer simulation for controlling a simulated vehicle in a computer generated environment thereof, comprising:

• providing access towards a central repository comprising a synthetic natural environment database that comprises data for a plurality of geographically-located terrain skin representations of the computer generated environment of the interactive computer simulation;
• at a remote data management system, computing a plurality of expected geographical positions for the first simulation station;
• and
• from the remote data management system, anticipatorily updating, via the network, a subset of the synthetic natural environment database stored in a remote repository accessible to the first simulation station with a supplemental subset of the synthetic natural environment database corresponding to one or more of the computed expected geographical positions.

A system, for executing an interactive computer simulation of a simulated vehicle, comprising a central repository, a remote data management system, a remote repository and an interactive computer simulation station interconnected via a network, wherein:

• the central repository comprises a synthetic natural environment database that comprises data for a plurality of geographically-located terrain skin representations of a computer generated environment of the interactive computer simulation;
• and
• the remote data management system maintains the remote repository comprising a subset of the synthetic natural environment database accessible to the interactive computer simulation station;
• the interactive computer simulation station:
• sends, over the network, a data request for one or more geographical locations from the synthetic natural environment database for rendering images for the interactive computer simulation;
• and
• allows one or more users to interact in the interactive computer simulation for controlling the simulated vehicle in the computer generated environment considering the rendered images;
• and
• the remote data management system of the interactive computer simulation system:
• computes a plurality of expected geographical positions for the first simulation station interactive computer simulation stations;
• and
• anticipatorily updates, via the network, the subset of the synthetic natural environment database stored in the remote repository with a supplemental subset of the synthetic natural environment database corresponding to one or more of the computed expected geographical positions.