Pilot aid using a synthetic environment

A pilot aid which uses an aircraft's position and attitude to transform data from a digital data base to present a pilot with a synthesized three dimensional projected view of the world comprising:

• a position determining system for locating said aircraft's position in three dimensions;
• a digital data base comprising terrain data, said terrain data representing real terrestrial terrain as at least one polygon, said terrain data generated from elevation data of said real terrestrial terrain;
• an attitude determining system for determining said aircraft's orientation in three dimensional space;
• a computer to access said terrain data according to said aircraft's position and to transform said terrain data to provide three dimensional projected image data according to said aircraft's orientation;
• and
• a mass storage memory for recording said aircraft position data and said aircraft's attitude data for allowing a flight of said aircraft over said terrain to be displayed at a later time.

A pilot aid which uses an aircraft's position and attitude to transform data from a digital data base to present a pilot with a synthesized three dimensional projected view of the world comprising:

• a position determining system for locating said aircraft's position in three dimensions;
• a digital data base comprising terrain data, said terrain data representing real terrestrial terrain as at least one polygon, said terrain data generated from elevation data of said real terrestrial terrain;
• a first attitude determining system for determining said aircraft's orientation in three dimensional space;
• a head mounted display worn by said pilot of said aircraft;
• a second attitude determining system for determining the orientation of said pilot's head in three dimensional space;
• and
• a computer to access said terrain data according to said aircraft's position and to transform said terrain data to provide three dimensional projected image data to said head mounted display according to said aircraft's orientation and said pilot head orientation.

A method of using an aircraft's position and attitude to transform data from a digital data base to present a pilot with a synthesized three dimensional projected view of the world comprising:

• locating said aircraft's position in three dimensions;
• providing a data base comprising terrain data, said terrain data representing real terrestrial terrain as at least one polygons, said terrain data generated from elevation data of said real terrestrial terrain;
• determining said aircraft's orientation in three dimensional space;
• accessing said terrain data according to said aircraft's position;
• transforming said terrain data to provide three dimensional projected image data according to said aircraft's orientation;
• and
• displaying said three dimensional projected image data.